Wrong Decision, Right Reasons
by maidenfairhair
Summary: Five years after AWE, Elizabeth returns home from a ball in London to find an unexpected guest waiting for her. JE. A different take on both characters... Last chapter now up-- COMPLETE!
1. Wrong Decision, Right Reasons

**Wrong Decision, Right Reasons. **

**Five years after AWE, Elizabeth returns home from a ball in London to find an unexpected guest waiting for her. Risking everything, she embarks on a journey across the East to find the last treasure of the Pirate Age, rediscovering herself and a man she once loved in the process. JE, different take on both characters. Please review! **

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Elizabeth pushed open the door of her room and let out a deep sigh of weariness. Another night of dancing, of polite flirtation and not-so-polite insinuations from her aunt that it was time to accept one of the many proposals awaiting her. Another night of stilted formality and grace, of saying anything but what you meant, of pretending. Elizabeth sank onto the floor and laid her head on her knees. I ought to check on William, she thought briefly, but made no move to rise. He was sure to be asleep in his nursery just yards away; peacefully asleep, perhaps dreaming of the wild tales she sometimes told him. It was unwise to do so, unwise to dwell on a life that was no longer hers, but aching for it became so sharp sometimes she couldn't help herself. William looked so much like his father. 

She remembered first learning of her pregnancy, a few months after Will had left. She was living back in Port Royal at the time, walking a dangerous line between respectable citizen and Pirate King while the Royal Navy continued their sometimes-brutal crackdown on criminals and the less-than-savory of society. Engaged in almost-weekly break-ins to the jail in an attempt to free various friends and acquaintances, and periodically hired as an assassin or crew-mate, Elizabeth's life had taken a sudden lurch back into reality with the realization that she was with child. Alone, with no family and no husband, she became frantic. She couldn't raise a child on the run, and she didn't want to bring one into the mess she was living in.

In those dark days, her one idea was to find Jack. She hated to admit it, but she needed him. Desperately. In her worst moments he had been there (and more than usually with a plan). She began searching every town and port in the Caribbean, chasing every rumour of him, but always the trail remained cold. He had gone--- gone to find the fountain of youth, some said, but no one had seen or heard from him since. Not a trace of him was left anywhere. And eventually, Elizabeth herself came to accept that he was gone for good-- dead, perhaps, or sailed away past the ends of the earth. And those were the bleakest moments Elizabeth had known. She was truly alone. Thinking of Will's curse, and the near widow-hood she found herself in, she thought of ending the pregnancy. Will would never know. She had been strong through too much tragedy already. Elizabeth smiled wryly, for fate had intervened again, cutting her off from making that dreadful choice. Gibbs had found her, somewhere in the Pacific, and had persuaded her to return to England to whatever family she had left there. England hardly seemed real to Elizabeth at the time-- a faraway memory, nothing more. At first she had flatly refused, declaring she would rather be dead than return to that awful place, to a family she didn't know and a society she hated. But Gibbs was clever, much more clever than most gave him credit for, and he could rouse her loyalty to Will, the promises she had made him, and her duty to carry on her father's name. In the end, she had consented. But something had died in her heart on that lonely journey back across the Atlantic, and the Elizabeth that arrived penniless, ragged, heavy with child and apparently husband-less on the doorstep of her Aunt and Uncle in London was a broken woman, certainly not the proud Pirate King who had parried swords and words with the most feared legends of the seven seas. Her child was born in a dim room less than a month later, and she overheard her aunt wondering aloud who's bastard it was. _Never mind,_ she would tell the sleeping infant._You're heir to the pirate throne._

Strangely, Will was the person Elizabeth thought least about. Whether this was part of the curse or her own mind's affectation, she didn't know. She had feverishly watched his heart at the beginning; now, it remained neatly stored in a cupboard, gathering dust perhaps. How many years had it been? Five? Five years. No wonder that brief day with Will felt like a dream, some story made up to amuse herself as she tossed and turned at night. The dream of a pale, restrained English virgin.

Movement by the window snapped her out of her reverie. Instantly, she was on her feet, her hand flexing for a weapon. She couldn't help the still-sharp reflex to danger as a painful surge of adrenaline whipped through her body. Forcing her breathing to remain steady, she inched towards the window. She had stolen a sword at some point and hidden it in her room in a foolish fit of anger at English society, and now she snatched the hilt with trembling fingers, almost gleeful at the chance she might get to use it. There was definite movement behind the curtains.

A muffled voice caused sweat to break out on her forehead. "Good evening, Miss Elizabeth." The voice was deep and calm, and a hooded figure emerged to match it. Inexplicably, Elizabeth felt herself relax. She forced herself to raise the sword to the concealed visitor's neck. "I trust you won't scream if I defend myself," the voice chuckled.

"Not at all. I've no wish to alarm the household."

"Ah, yes. Ever considerate, I see."

Irked by the sarcasm, Elizabeth dealt the first blow. Mocking laughter met her further attempts as the figure easily blocked her attacks and casually moved to block the door. Undaunted, Elizabeth carried the duel into her parlor next door. Neither she nor the intruder were battling in earnest; both seemed intent on testing out their partner's skills rather than drawing blood. "You're better than I remember," the man remarked. "Not quite as impulsive, perhaps."

"Who are you?" Elizabeth finally demanded, breathless and smiling in spite of herself. It had been a long time since she had enjoyed the swift mental exercise of a good swordfight. The man attacked again, and Elizabeth forgot her question as she tried to outwit his cunning play. Her days as Pirate King were coming back to her, the thrill of the fight, the danger, the risk. He was very good, perhaps as good as Will had been. Except Will had always let her win.

They were back in her bedroom now, backed up against the window, when Elizabeth snatched a chance to knock against the wall with her foot. The intruder, responding to what sounded like a knock at the door, lost his focus for a moment, but a moment was all Elizabeth needed. Before he could stop her, she had his weapon in her other hand.

"You cheated!" The figure cried in astonishment.

"Pirate," Elizabeth acknowledged before she could stop herself. She bit her lip and sighed. "Remove your hood. I'll at least have a look at you before I decide whether or not to deal a death blow."

With a bow, the figure did remove his hood, and it was Jack. The infamous Jack Sparrow, standing in her bedroom, years after she had thought never to see him again, years after she had hardened her heart to his death or banishment. _I shouldn't be surprised,_ she thought to herself, though she was shaking and speechless.

"I'll give a moment to recover yourself," he said dryly, with a look that infuriated her.

She moistened her lips. Part of her nearly settled to kill him and have done with it—throw the body out the window, forget him and the life he represented to her.

"If you're going to kill me, please be my guest. I have no plans to fight. I've been killed by you before, and I suppose I could stand it again."

He was so different. That was why she couldn't speak. If it weren't for the voice, she wouldn't have recognized him. He seemed ancient, aged greatly in worldly wisdom, and weary of everything. His garments were exceedingly rich, his skin darker than she remembered, his hair in a single braid. Rings gleamed from his fingers, a diamond encrusted brooch adorned his cloak. And his eyes were dim, sardonic, almost dead. She set down both swords and stepped closer.

"Jack… Where have you been?"

"Does it matter?"

"Mother of God, Jack" she exploded, "I searched to the ends of the earth for you! People swore you were dead! I needed you, and where were you? Where have you been?"

"Everywhere," he said tiredly, as if it had been quite troublesome.

"And what's happened to you?"

"Everything." His smile was haunted.

"Jack, you mustn't play games with me, I'll simply die. I've been pretending for five wretched miserable years and if you insist on parrying I'll kill you!"

"Your impulsive side is coming back, I see," he remarked casually.

"How did you find me?"

"An old friend of yours. Gibbs."

"He brought me here," Elizabeth stammered, "years ago."

"So he did."

"You knew?"

"Perhaps."

Instead of rage, she felt nothing but the sharp sting of abandonment. She swallowed and tried not to burst into tears. "Why didn't you come for me?"

"Come and rescue the Pirate King? The wife of the Captain of the Flying Dutchman? The proud Governor's daughter who tricked me and plagued me and killed me? Why indeed?"

"You knew I needed you. I searched for you everywhere. I had messages sent." Her gaze was sharp with accusations.

"Let's not fight now," he said, surprising her yet again. He seemed suddenly overcome with exhaustion, and he stumbled to the bed and sat. Tentatively, she joined him. "I'm not the man I was then."

"I never knew you that well anyway," she grinned. "You never let me."

"You knew more than most," he said, matching her smile. He studied her face. "It would seem you had found the fountain of youth, and not me."

"Have you found it, Jack?" Her eyes sparkled with excitement and envy.

"Oh yes, years ago. I've found everything there is to find, my dear. Every treasure, every mystery discovered. Every enemy cowed—for good. Every lust satisfied."

_Except one,_ Elizabeth was tempted to say. But she held her tongue. No use talking of lusts satisfied when she sweated and writhed through the nights, unsatisfied. His voice was so cultured, his movements so calculated. How old he seemed! She remembered the springy walk that had once amused her, the rough words, the tangle of dark braids, the smell of salt and sweat that used to travel with him. Now he smelled of cigar smoke and cologne. She wondered, were she to look beneath his embroidered jacket, whether the tell-tale scars would still be there or whether the years had removed them as well. "And you?" He asked softly. "What strange adventures have you had since last I saw you?"

"Only one adventure. My son…" She stammered. "I have a son."

"William," Jack said brusquely. "I know. Asleep in the next room." They both looked at the floor. "I would never have pictured you as a mother."

"I would never have pictured you as the wealthy, cultured man you seem to have become."

He looked at her sideways out of his long dark eyes. "A perfect English lady you are now. Quite proper in every way. You were so ready to be married, but I fear this isn't quite what you had in mind."

Elizabeth bit her lip and did not give him the satisfaction of replying.

"It's a pity. You have beauty and passion. You might have made some man exceedingly happy. But your bed is empty, isn't it?"

Elizabeth blushed. Could Jack read her frustration and loneliness so easily? Would he exploit them, would he tempt her as he once had? Another glance at him assured Elizabeth he wouldn't. He seemed leagues away from her. Of course, he still thought her beautiful. But from his implications, Elizabeth assumed he wouldn't be taken in by a pretty face so easily anymore. It seemed he had had his fill of women, some perhaps much more beautiful than she.

A moment passed. Jack seemed to choose his words carefully when he said, "Are you disappointed with life?"

_Yes, beyond all else, yes,_ Elizabeth thought. "I don't regret the choices I have made," she said steadily. "But every day I wake up and wish I was dead."

He smiled briefly. "I thought as much." He pulled out a pocket watch and studied it. "Time presses. The ship is in the harbour, ready to sail. We leave tonight. Are you coming along?"

Her heart surged with disappointment when Jack said he was leaving, and then swooped back up at the question he posed. She tried to force herself to think clearly. "What do you mean?"

"There's one last adventure to be had," he said, and spark of life came into his eyes. That spark was seductive beyond belief— he knew the word adventure was her greatest weakness. "I've obtained a map to the counterpart to my old compass. If found, it will not only show you your heart's desire, but bring it to you instantly, make you the sole possessor of it forever. Whatever your heart desires, yours."

She drew a sharp breath. He knew too well how to maneuver and manipulate her. She could hardly breath. "I can't Jack… my son is here, my family."

"Yes, your family," he sneered. "Listen to me, Elizabeth Turner. You'll never see me again if you don't come now. I'll never come back to this country. You must decide now what you want. Leave the boy; he'll be well taken care of, given a good education. In five years you can come back for him, take him to meet his father, take him to hell if you like. I'll not waste another minute here. Take off that ridiculous corset, put on a cloak and follow me out this window or you'll spend the rest of your life clinking tea cups with the dukes of all boredom. Savvy?"

His words were proud and harsher than steel, but a hint of the old Jack came through. Elizabeth stopped thinking. There was nothing else to be done. She met his eyes for a moment, and that was all she needed. With a quick movement, she unbuttoned the bodice of the heavy gown she wore, stepping out of it to reveal the too-tightly laced corset. Jack tilted his head to admire her body, and then pulled out a jeweled dagger. He stepped closer. Elizabeth's heart pounded. With a smooth motion, he reached out and slit the strings of her corset from top to bottom, dropping it on the floor beside her.

"Much better," he said, replacing the dagger. He stepped onto the window ledge, swung it open, and then held out his hand to her. "My lady," was his dark invitation. Elizabeth glanced back towards the hallway, towards the room where her son slept. And then she turned back, her face set, and took his hand.


	2. White Araby

**Ch 2… yes, I have continued it. I am very happy for all the comments you have left! (In case you are interested, I am in the midst of another Pirates story called "Legends of the Pirate King," which is a different post-AWE fic, slightly more traditional take on the characters, less emotional and more swashbuckling. I'd love it if you would check it out, too.) But back to the main event… a bit more easing into the story, and then things will pick up.**

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Obsidian. The molding of the rail might have been obsidian, for all it was black and smooth as the stone. Elizabeth traced it with shaking fingers as she followed Jack Sparrow towards the dock, the rotten smell of the Thames thick around them, the hum of the night people distant in the fog. Somewhere, a clock struck 3 AM. Elizabeth jumped in her skin and pulled the heavy cloak closer around her shoulders. The cold of England had settled in her bones, her pale skin, her heart. She could never get back the last five years. She could never do away with the marks they had made on her. 

Gunshots behind them. At this hour? Elizabeth was poised for flight, but Jack tightened his grip on her arm and ushered her forward. "Behave yourself," he hissed into her ear. "We are hardly common criminals." Elizabeth looked behind with frightened eyes to see a young woman, barely her own age, fall into the slush of the street with a cry. Soldiers came running, their sabers drawn, one rifle still smoking. Noisy chatter; they had got the thief, by George! Got her right in range and shot her. Elizabeth shuddered and with difficulty, turned away.

Was she expecting the Black Pearl, or a muddle of drunken sea-dogs for greeting? It must be so, for what she actually observed shocked and unnerved her. The ship was immaculate, rich, and far too grand. It was a three-masted square rig, and every sail was trimmed with the finest weavings, the wood new and gleaming black under the half-moon. A silent first mate awaited Jack at attention; foreign eyes under a wine-red hood, a curved and jeweled sword at his side. He spoke to Jack in a language Elizabeth didn't understand, and to her surprise, Jack responded in kind. He turned to her with the smooth, careless grace of a courtier.

"My lady. Welcome aboard the White Araby. You'll share a cabin with me."

"Isn't there room below—" Elizabeth began to ask, and then thought better of it. Certainly there was. The ship was massive, though simply named for what was clearly a warship. But this enigma of a man before her was not to be questioned; that much was clear. Obsidian. The black in his eyes might be Obsidian, for all they were devoid of any warmth._Oh Jack, what's happened to you? _

"Ya effendim," the first mate called to Jack. "Yalla?"

"Na'am, shukran," Jack replied.

The first mate stepped closer, eyeing Elizabeth. "Hiyya?"

"Akht." Jack replied curtly.

"Ahlan wa Sahlan," the first made said, making a slight bow to Elizabeth. Within moments, a crew of silent and elegant crew members were making preparations for departure.

Elizabeth's head spun. She clung to Jack's strong arm, noticing his well-groomed hands, which had once been so rough and exciting. Half of her was ready to run all the way back to Aunt and Uncle's house, gather William close in her arms, and never step foot out the door again. But the stubbornness that had always plagued her won through.

Jack led her under a geometric arch, through a black door and down a wide corridor, where a heavy embroidered curtain was hung aside to reveal a sitting room with a hazy fireplace. Cushions were spread around the floor, and a low table was set with tea and wine. Jack made sure to tug the curtain across the entry, and then sank onto one of the cushions. A deep sigh escaped his lips.

Elizabeth shrugged off her cloak and joined him, not pausing to examine the curious room. The tea was served in small crystal glasses, through which the steaming amber liquid could be seen. The glass burned her fingers and Jack smiled slightly.

"Hold it by the top, and drink fast," were his only instructions. For himself, he chose an exquisite decanter of wine so red it was almost black. Elizabeth watched as he lifted a half-filled goblet of it to his nose and swirled it slightly, enjoying the fragrance. A brief sip, nothing more, and then he set it back down. The room smelled thickly of incense.

"No rum?"

"I'm afraid not. My tastes don't run in that direction." _Anymore_, was the unspoken word.

"Jack, I'm either going to ask you a million questions or you're going to tell me everything and save me the trouble. Which will it be?"

Jack's face was suddenly encompassed with exhaustion again, the same look that had surprised Elizabeth in her bedroom a half hour before. "Some things are better left unsaid."

"Not everything," she returned, setting down the tea, which was far too sweet. "You've got me here, aboard your ship, ready to give up everything in my life for this adventure. I won't sail around with a dead man walking, Jack. I won't!"

"Demanding as ever. Your years in London's society have made a bit shrill, I'm afraid. We'll have to do something about that. What will all your suitors do when they discover you've gone?"

Had he been spying on her, or was he merely making accurate guesses? "Don't trouble yourself on their behalf," she muttered. "Accepting one of them would have been the death knell to my heart."

"Poor little Elizabeth," Jack sighed, and she couldn't tell if he was mocking her or not. He was sitting cross-legged on the cushion, his posture perfect, his black hair gleaming in the firelight. A single sharp line of liquid kohl had been meticulously drawn to elongate his dark eyes, a far cry from the soft smudged charcoal that had once been there. And his voice was like obsidian in the warm room, a chill wind spreading over Elizabeth as she toyed with her glass of tea.

Without a word, Jack stood and stripped off his rich coat and the silk shirt beneath, his bare chest smooth as polished wood. Elizabeth bounded up and uttered a short cry of relief upon seeing the same familiar scars, though faded, littered across his skin. He glanced at her in surprise, a crease forming between his eyes.

"I was beginning to be afraid it wasn't you, after all!" she said, embarrassed. He glided to a table and began flinging off his jewelry.

"It's nigh on impossible to make them disappear," he smiled. "Believe me, I've tried." He strode to a set of French doors and opened them, revealing a small bedchamber. His movements were calculated, assured, graceful.

"Why am I here, Jack?" Elizabeth finally found the courage to ask. She hardly knew him; it was like parrying with a perfect stranger.

Jack hesitated, shifting his weight. And then, in a voice so soft Elizabeth could hardly hear him, he said, "Will you stay with me? I never sleep anymore… haven't been able to in so long. Nightmares, you see…"

So that explained the deep lines of weariness etched into his darkly handsome face, and the periodic droop of his proud shoulders. "Jack, what's happened to you?"

He jerked away from her touch, and nearly collapsed onto the bed. Elizabeth sat next to him, motherly concern washing over her pale face. He closed his eyes. "Stay with me. I swear I won't touch you. I just want to know you're here."

She laughed lightly. "I'm not afraid of you, Jack." She drew her hand over his face, over the tense forehead and smooth shaven jaw. She had never before seen his face shaven, and he looked old and beautiful, a marbled statue of a man. "Tell me about your dreams."

He shuddered. "I don't want to."

"Very well," she said bending to remove her shoes. "We'll talk about something else. Remember when we were stranded together on that island, years ago? Barbossa had taken the Pearl, and you and I thought we were done for."

"Until you burned the rum," Jack said, a smile spreading across his worn face. Elizabeth lay down on the enormous bed, almost intimidated by the deep down mattress and silk coverlets. She and her family were well-to-do in English society, but she had never before seen such wealth. Was Jack a pirate, or a king? She gingerly drew a blanket over him and propped her head up on her forearm. His breathing was rapid and unsteady. His vulnerability struck her heart in places she had long since closed. Could she bear to go back to the Caribbean? Was she strong enough to undertake this adventure?

"Where are we going, Jack?" she asked, unconsciously leaning against him. She felt blissfully secure, knowing he was there. For the briefest moment, she could remember the smell of the salt in the surf and hear the cry of gulls overhead. For the briefest moment, she was nineteen again, vigorous and filled with great dreams for life, teeming with possibility under the tropical sun. In those days, everything had spread out at her feet with delicious excitement. How happy she had been, thrust into the world of the infamous Jack Sparrow! How happy she had been leaning on Port Royal's bulwark, listening to Will ramble about the wonderful future awaiting them once they were married. How happy, and how simple.

"First to Ethiopia. We have to pick up a translator."

"Ethiopia," Elizabeth repeated, the name tasting exotic on her tongue. "Will it be a long journey?"

"Fairly. We'll take the African route, the long way round. There's a map on the wall, if you care to look."

Elizabeth shook her head. Months, then. Months stretching out into foreign lands, and already her arms were hungry for her son. Already she could hear the steady beat of _his_ heart in her mind, chiding her, condemning her, crushing her. Blinking back stale tears, she cautiously rested her head on Jack's chest. She had prayed for a savior, but it seemed they both were wandering separate purgatories.

Never mind. Never mind anything. The monotony of life had settled into her heart like hemlock root, rocking her into an insensate daze of waltzing and fanning and dressing and watching her son emerge from the presence of his expensive tutors. She thought of the powdered, wigged dukes that sought her favor for their own vanity, the gaggle of ladies with their noses in the air, ready with a fake smile at any hour of the day. And the comments whispered behind gloved hands when her son was allowed to visit, endlessly speculating about who his father was. It sickened her to watch the young girls arriving at their first ball, eyes sparkling, unaware of the tragedy awaiting them. It sickened her to think that she was trapped among them. She had thought her spirit was broken and subdued, but now, here was a glimmer of hope at escape. The faintest hope, the worst decision of her life. But she wasn't afraid any longer. It was as though she had been dead, lived through every fear she had ever had… and now nothing had the power to really scare her. Her own recklessness was astounding.

"You smell like perfume," Jack murmured, relaxing, allowing one agile hand to brush through her hair, which was darker than he remembered. "You always used to smell like the sea. Like freedom."

"I bathe twice a week in lavender water. I'm a lady, Jack. Not a wild little girl chasing around the ocean with ideals just waiting to be shattered." The speech was like bile on her tongue.

"You've become very bitter," Jack commented. "I'd hate to think why."

"Perhaps the same reason you suffer nightmares?"

"Immortality comes with a price," was his only response. "Like love."

* * *

She hardly slept, for Jack moaned and tossed like a child, crying out in a strange tongue, his face anguished and his body damp with sweat. At first Elizabeth was frightened, but she whispered to him softly, and he would relax, only to jerk awake moments later in a terror. What visions kept him from sleep Elizabeth couldn't guess; she only assume that they were dreadful. When the cold light of dawn finally streamed through the wide picture-window, Jack drifted off. Elizabeth climbed out of the bed, feeling cold and dizzy. Barefoot, she wandered out of the bedroom and down the corridor until she found herself on deck. The channel was receding behind them, and the coast of France was ahead, a murky gray landscape cloaked in a dismal fog. Elizabeth smiled slightly, drinking in the scent of the sharp cold wind and the feel of it whipping around her. It was much better than sleep. 

"Sabah Al Khair," the first mate said, materializing beside her. Elizabeth blushed as she remembered the loose white camisole she wore, but he kept a respectful distance.

"I'm sorry, I only speak English," she returned, wondering if he could understand her. To her surprise, he nodded.

"Good morning, then," his accent was foreign, but not nearly so thick as some. Elizabeth could understand each word perfectly. Had he been educated in England? "How did you sleep?"

"Not well," she admitted with a wry smile. "You look like you haven't moved since last night."

"Morning prayers." He bowed. "I am Mahmoud Abbas. And you?"

"Elizabeth," she said. She had taken her Uncle's Dutch surname when she returned to London, but that name she would discard now. She had worn many names, she thought vaguely. It was somewhat freeing to be simply Elizabeth. "When did you meet Jack?"

"The Viscount?" Mahmoud replied, astonished at her improper familiarity. "His Lordship employed me at the building of this ship, about a year ago. He was visiting family in India."

"Family?" Elizabeth murmured, wondering why she had never before thought of Jack having family. "His father and mother?"

"You are his sister," Mahmoud shrugged. "I would have assumed you knew."

Elizabeth bristled at Jack's lie. "Does he keep many women on the ship?"

"Sometimes he'll take one aboard, but never for long. No lady can be good enough for him, I think. He was married to a girl once. I think her death broke his heart. He cries her name out in his sleep sometimes."

"I see," she said, more curious than ever.

"A lady's maid has been employed for you at the last harbor. She'll bring you whatever you desire. Ya, Tusti!" Mahmoud called sharply into nowhere. And out of nowhere, Tusti appeared. Plump and dark skinned, with clipped black hair and downcast eyes, Tusti was decidedly foreign and serene as a summer afternoon.

"How did Jack—or rather, the Viscount, know I would be joining him?"

Mahmoud smiled at her condescendingly. "He has his ways. You're the last piece of the puzzle, it seems. He's been after this treasure a long time."


	3. Andalusia

** Ch.3**

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Andalusia was only beautiful at night, under a full moon. Mirolli the Fool walked home in his yellow scuffed shoes, humming. It was so rare that Andalusia was beautiful. He jingled his hat at the steamy cobblestone, where moonlight spilt over quiet conversations on the narrow, twisting passages around him. It was good to hear Spanish after playing to the travelers all day. The surge of foreigners, many of them East India traders, who passed through the tiny trade port each day filled his head with visions of faraway places, places that were forbidden to him. 

His footsteps were shuffling and heavy; weary after the light merry motions of his oh-so-skilled muscles all afternoon. Dancer's feet, turned out, scarred, and very ugly. No one ever saw his feet under those scuffed yellow shoes.

Mirolli the Fool was a woman, undressing in front of her window, unbinding her breasts from their captivity.

Her loaded pistol was on the dresser, along with a pile of cash, the day's earnings. But soon she would add to that the night's earnings.

Mirolli the Fool had a face like a coin. Two sides; people often made wishes on her before flinging her into a fountain of oblivion. She pulled out her wine jug and drained it. Her hair was unpinned now, incredibly thick. She ate well; she was healthy. Tomorrow she would visit Mama in the countryside away from Cadiz, with stories only of Mirolli and the crowds who loved him.

Estrella the courtesan pushed open the green varnished door, while the gray cat slipped inside. A runaway child was hiding in the alley. Mirolli gave the child a hopeful smile, while Estrella hid her face, her silk heeled boots clattering on the stones. No one ever saw her feet under those boots. Estrella was good at her job, and her shoes never need come off.

Andalusia was only beautiful in the morning, under a full sunrise. Estrella never saw a sunrise; she would be sleeping then. Wine would be erasing the stranger's exploration of her body.

A stream of passers-by on the avenue drew her along, past the fountains of Cadiz as she flung herself into oblivion again. Estrella smiled. It was so rare that Andalusia was beautiful.

* * *

The White Araby was aptly named, though it took Elizabeth nearly ten days to discover why. Under a full moon, the black ship reflected moonlight in sharp rays across the sea, and from far away it appeared to glow white. Rather than the sheen of a ghost ship, a saintly and pure light clung to it in these moments, bathing their surroundings in mystic wonder. Sailors that passed by swore they had seen a ship of the gods. 

Ten days had passed as they rounded the coast of Spain, where Elizabeth would disembark with Jack to wander strange streets under a hot Spanish sun. Jack had acquired some miraculous patience concerning the treasure they sought; they stopped often, if only to give Jack the opportunity of introducing Elizabeth to a little town he had once stayed in, or a friend he once knew. Today they had meandered through the streets of a quaint little port in Cadiz, where a slender court-jester performed with delightful agility across the ancient Moorish stones on the coast. But always they returned at eventide to the White Araby, perhaps the only thing remaining constant on their journey. For Jack was as inconsistent as a Caribbean afternoon; one moment full of laughter and storytelling, the next wrapped in a cocoon of grief that Elizabeth could not penetrate no matter how hard she tried.

Without explanation, Jack had given Elizabeth her own cabin, but she could still hear his fevered cries late at night. A morbid fascination had come over her; she wanted to understand his dreams, know of the pain he bore. The dark chasm of her own suffering was drawn to his; the wild of the sea was a balm she had forgotten, for the terror it sometimes evoked.

"I sometimes think I have stopped believing in the curse," she said that night, as the moon climbed above them. They were sitting on cushions on the deck, while Jack smoked the Shisha pipe nearby, blowing smoke rings into the night. He handed her the hose, taking care to wipe the mouthpiece. Elizabeth remembered the horror her Aunt had expressed the first time she had accepted a cigar at a dinner party in London; she hadn't smoked since. The smell of the honeyed tobacco resting on atop the water-filled glass pipe was hazy and sweet, some mixture of rose and jurak. She drew in a puff and then coughed, laughing at herself.

"Don't inhale it. Just hold it on your tongue," Jack instructed. Elizabeth tried again, savoring the taste and then feeling a wave of dizziness surround her head. Jack laughed as Elizabeth handed the hose back. "Life was different before," he assented. "Our lives were so fast and thrilling. It made it all easier to believe."

"If I saw some of the fantastical things now that we knew then, I would faint away," Elizabeth said with a wistful smile. "When I lived in England, I would lay awake sometimes in a panic, thinking I had only imagined all those years… my marriage to Will, that dark journey to the end of the world…"

"But then, your son is real," Jack reminded her. She flinched.

"Yes, and a good deal too sweet a dream for me to fully accept." She looked at him sideways. "Haven't you any children by now, Jack?"

Jack looked up at the stars, breathing in a draft of smoke and blowing it out thoughtfully. "I did have. A daughter. But she's dead."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It was my own fault."

"I doubt that," Elizabeth remarked. "Sometimes we lose the ones we love." She wanted to continue, but could sense Jack pulling away. She wondered how she would ever yank the story out of him. Being with Jack was sometimes worse than those stilted society conversations of London; she couldn't say what came into her head, each word had to be sifted and softened in order to not frighten him away. "Whatever happened to the Pearl?"

Jack didn't meet her eyes. "It was destroyed."

"When? How?" The memories that suddenly assailed her were distinct and she was deeply saddened that the ship was no more. How many hours had she spent aboard it, learning the ways of piracy, learning the ways of men?

"I ordered it destroyed. Set fire to it myself, nigh on two years ago."

"Jack, I swear you must have been possessed. You loved that ship as much as you loved your own life."

"It had become a burden."

Elizabeth knew that he was closing the subject. She had learned much since her first night aboard the White Araby. She had learned of Jack's moods, of Mahmoud's endlessly enduring faith and constant prayers. She had learned the language of looks between the Captain and his crew, the calm Boatswain, the leering Quarter-master, the subservient sailors. She had learned to appreciate the sharp-smelling henna that Pusti painted on her hands and feet every third day to ward off evil spirits. She had learned to forget her son, her family, her life in England. Already it was slipping away from her, unhindered by regrets. One day she would return to young William and they would be strangers to one another. But such was life, whether she had remained in London or not.

Jack was watching her face now. "Always a bit too curious for your own good," he commented dryly. "I can see all those questions hovering at your eyelids."

"You could answer them for once," Elizabeth muttered. "I am not your enemy. There is no need to keep secrets from me."

"Not my enemy? Everyone is my enemy."

Elizabeth smiled coldly. "Yourself most of all. You're hardly human anymore, Jack."

"I am a great success," he returned softly. "Wealthy beyond my wildest dreams, wise beyond my years, full of experience."

"And yet, you are unhappy." Instinctively she pushed some of his dark hair away from his face, to see his eyes. "Tell me your grief. Releasing it will make you feel better."

"Don't patronize me."

She frowned and rose, walking the width of the deck to the starboard side, where a pale-faced sailor played a haunting stream on the duduk flute. "Very well. It seems I'll have to stop talking to you altogether." Where was her adventurous friend, the warm and teasing man she had known in the Caribbean? What happened to his rich humor, his funny manners, his wheedling ways? As if in response, she felt his hands on her shoulders, turning her around to face him. He was much stronger than she, and Elizabeth's skin prickled at his touch. She flushed with desire that she could not rationalize. But she had been in long practice of stifling her desires, and the skin cooled at once. She met his eyes calmly.

"Don't stop talking to me. I'm just learning how again." His openness was more persuasive than his suggestive impudence had once been. Elizabeth smiled in spite of herself. "You've become so old and proper," he continued. "You make me nervous."

"I?" Elizabeth asked in shock. "_You_ have!"

He didn't want to argue. He put his arms around her, tentative at first, and then holding her body against his comfortably, as old friends do. Elizabeth relaxed and rested against him. In her room that night he had promised her adventure, but what she found instead were a series of small events, pleasant and new, satisfying and yet lacking the delirious pace of earlier days. Elizabeth noticed that barefoot, as he was now, he was not much taller than her. The scent of tobacco and cologne had grown reassuring to her senses. He was weaving himself back into the fabric of her life, overtaking her thoughts, appearing in her dreams. And yet he was still a puzzle, a scatter of impressions and emotions in her mind, impossible to understand. He was the adventure, and the journey was subterfuge.

They stood like that a long time. Unafraid, Elizabeth finally led him to his bedchamber. He was nearly asleep as she lay down beside him, close and content. For the first time in many months, Jack slept through the night without waking once. And by the smile in his eyes the next morning, Elizabeth sensed that his dreams had been sweet and untroubled.

* * *

_Banging on the door. Not the soldiers, someone is crying. Angéle isn't careful, she opens it right away. An old woman is there, her tattered garments fringed with blood. The woman speaks no English, and Angéle talks to her in swift low tones, speaking her native French. _

"_What is it? What does she want?"_

"_The Navy came to their street and killed all the men. The Captain came in and burned them out, she warned the crew and ran. Bella is still there." _

_The woman turned; gunshots a few streets away. Pressing Angéle's hand, she ran out into the alley. _

_Jack's young wife looked up, circles ringing her African eyes. Jack embraced her, secretly worshipping her. Her strength and lightheartedness pierced him amidst the hell they were living._

"_Bella," she whispered. "She's still on the ship."_

_Jack was in already action, thinking desperately of his tiny black-eyed daughter asleep on the Pearl, still tied to the docks of Port Majestic. With a curt warning of the situation to the innkeeper, they went into the night. It was hot and dark and sticky, the stone-paved streets littered with old garbage from the market and bullet shells. But the breeze off the ocean smelled lovely, like peace. Angéle wasn't afraid, clutching Jack with her sturdy brown hand. She trusted him completely. A pirate he was, but she had married him for the good man inside, and stood by him even after her father, a slave who had been elevated to steward over a Jamaican sugar-plantation, disowned her and tried to have him killed. Nevertheless, the Caribbean had grown increasingly dangerous for a man of his reputation. The age of piracy was ending. _

_Royal Navy coming. Duck around the corner. Hold your breath. They might pass, it's just an inspection. Gun shots. Soldiers. Get down, please sweetheart, just wait a moment. They'll pass. Back the other way, they come. More gunshots. Shouting, swearing. A bottle breaking. Silence. Love, go back and check the other side of the street. I'll wait here for you._

_Jack obeyed, crawling cautiously around the corner, looking for moving shadows or the Royal Navy colors. The Port had suddenly become infested with them. _

_Angéle stepped out to check ahead of them, but there were two men there, and she had the brand. They grabbed her and pushed her back into the alley and shot two bullets into her head. _

_Then they left. Their company was just passing through. Jack found Angéle; she was already dead, it must be some mistake. Just a routine run, the crew waiting for them on the Pearl, planning to leave with the evening tide. He could go back and make it better, go for Bella by himself, make Angéle stay inside, he could jump in front of the bullets or maybe kill the soldiers with his hands, he could make the brethren court understand what was happening here and then they would have come to fight the soldiers, he could make the world understand what was happening everywhere, all across Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, and then the Europeans wouldn't be shooting anyone with dark skin in the streets for not serving them, they wouldn't be shooting his Angéle in the street like so many of their friends had been shot. He could make it better, go back and send Angéle to the North, he could love her better and his love would be enough to save her, he could hold her and kiss her and make love to her in a warm house on an island instead of holding her dead body with blood everywhere in this torn apart land where the whites were drunk with power and greedy for endless gain, where they would kill his Angéle. _

_It was over. _

_Jack was screaming into the dust, sprawled over a gutter and a broken bottle in the alley, and the breeze smelled like peace._

* * *

Morocco was on the horizon, and the drifting foreign smells assailed the ship as it steered towards her coast. Elizabeth was wearing an embroidered robe that hung loosely around her frame, tied only with a slender beaded belt at her narrow waist. After bearing William she had kept on weight after the English fashion, her swan-like figure becoming more curvaceous and womanly. She saw Jack admiring her from time to time, and his steady approving gaze made her feel beautiful from the top of her head to her silk-slippered feet. She would never wear a corset again, she vowed. 

"What do you think you will find at the end of our journey?" Jack asked her, joining her at the helm.

Elizabeth shrugged, placing her hands palm up in front of her. "I don't know. I haven't given it much thought."

"Things have been quiet," Jack murmured. "As we near our destination they will become more dangerous. Sometimes I think we won't succeed. There are many powers set against our winning through."

"Would you really have left me in England forever, if I hadn't agreed to come?"

"There was no doubt in my mind that you would come," Jack replied with a hint of his old arrogance.

"How did you know?"

"One word, love. Curiosity." Elizabeth was just as enraptured by his response as she had been the first time she heard those words. Effortless as a writer, Jack could name off her soul with the fewest words and the greatest accuracy of anyone she had ever met. "The proud Elizabeth pass up a chance at the greatest treasure ever known, with adventure thrown into the bargain? Impossible."

"But we haven't had any adventures yet," Elizabeth protested.

Jack looked towards the Moroccan coast with a glimmer in his eye that he couldn't hide. "That's about to change."

* * *

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	4. Steady She Goes

**Ch. 4. **

* * *

"Steady she goes, steady she goes, over away past the shoreline…" The White Araby plunged into Tangier on the wings of a vicious storm. Jack and Elizabeth stood in the wind on the deck, drenched and enlivened, watching the lights grow larger and brighter as they neared port. 

"Tell me about your family, Jack," Elizabeth said breathlessly. They were both fools, drawn to the storm as to treasure. She opened her mouth and caught the heady torrent of raindrops, her heart pounding along with the rhythm of the waves. If she had been able to see Jack in the black night, she would have seen how he stared only at her, relearning the lines of her face and her body in the blackness.

"I have no family," he said. She nearly slipped and he caught her; they were both laughing like drunks or like children.

"I've met your father, Jack! Don't try and elude me."

Jack smirked, a merry old sensation of power coming into his face. "I don't want to elude you, Elizabeth. I've always enjoyed being locked into combat with you instead."

They lurched again, clinging to each other; they could imagine Mahmoud's frustrated sigh below decks at their folly. Elizabeth slid from his grasp, and then swung around so that their lips almost met. In a sudden tremor, she lost herself in his obsidian eyes, feeling his hot breath on her face and his cool, wet skin against hers. It was as though the sea had conspired with the heavens to force their bodies together, to force their lips to meet, to force some kind of twisted desire that they couldn't fight into their blood. Both hearts were racing, and Elizabeth bent her head until their foreheads touched, and the noise of the storm faded around them. Her mouth was opening imperceptibly, and his was coming closer.

It was like drinking in an ocean, tasting the soul of the storm surrounding them. The kiss was a conversation, a confession, and a cry from the depths of two anguished souls, tortured by beauty they had so long been deprived of, tortured in heartbreaking abundance. There are men who go below the earth to mine jewels, and their eyes become accustomed to darkness, so that a return to the surface and a blast of sunlight are painful beyond endurance to their eyes, blinding. So was the moment Jack kissed Elizabeth in the rain, and then another great crash against the ship broke them apart. The surge of ecstasy was too much to bear, and yet too much to resist.

Suddenly they were standing a meter apart under a calm moonlit sky. Jack shuddered as he stared into Elizabeth's eyes, eyes that always betrayed her deepest emotions. She might have made a good liar if it weren't for those eyes. Jack allowed a soft little laugh to escape his lips. "Now then. That's just what I was trying to prevent happening."

"Why?" she asked before she could stop herself. Jack raised her chin with his hand and ran his thumb along her lips and then down her neck to her fluttering pulse. Cursing himself for his weakness, he spoke to her like he would to a wayward child.

"Neither of us want this," he started, and Elizabeth knew he was at least half wrong there. "Close quarters and new experiences can distract you from doing the right thing." He kissed her chastely on the forehead, and Elizabeth thought she had never before realized how much he had changed. She remembered the swift, eager, even aggressive way he had once touched her, and contrasted it to the cool feel of his hands now. She was inexplicably saddened. Was she not beautiful to him, not pleasing or alluring? Did he truly think of her only as a sister? Jack stepped back again, smiling, breathing in the air as if he had just averted a disaster. "Elizabeth, let's not ruin our adventure by going down that path."

Elizabeth mumbled something, and he frowned, noticing the pain on her face.

"What is it?"

"You never call me Lizzie anymore."

He was surprised by her comment. "Your name is Elizabeth. I thought you didn't like it when I called you 'Lizzie'. Too brash and informal, you thought, I'm sure."

"Yes," she said, "It _was_ too brash and informal! That's what made it so wonderful. Jack don't distance yourself from me. I'm lonely, so lonely! Can't you understand that?"

His shoulders slumped. "Yes, I understand. I just want to protect you from doing something you will regret. Think about where we are headed, love. Think about what awaits us if we find this treasure. Your husband could be free of his curse and back in your arms if you desired it. And for me—" he hesitated and then finished, "well, I've a haunted past to heal as well."

Elizabeth could hardly breathe. Why hadn't she realized that? Why hadn't she understood what going after this treasure might mean? And why, in the midst of hearing this new information, was she only thinking of the man in front of her? There had been a time Jack wouldn't have stopped her from giving in to him—a time when he would have welcomed it, whatever the consequences. After all these years, why was she still so impatient, immoral, hedonistic? It hurt her that Jack saw her weakness so plainly and resisted her so firmly. She tried to harden herself but she couldn't… the old tricks were failing her now. What he said was filled with wisdom, but she didn't want wisdom right now. She had never before understood how bitter wisdom and prudence could be.

* * *

_Jack never remembered what Savarna looked like. She always wore a blue scarf over her head and she was very small and skinny, and she didn't love Teague, keeper of the code. But she bore him his only son. _

_She was eighteen when she arrived aboard Teague's ship in Buenos Aires on Rio de la Plata. Her eyes were slanted and Indian; there was something broken and desperately free about those eyes. Jack was eight before Teague would let him meet Savarna, his mother. Jack had lived a patchwork life partially with Teague and more than usually on his own. Savarna meant daughter of the ocean, and she cried when she first saw Jack again. Teague had brought her to England to meet him._

"_Why are you crying?" Jack asked very calmly, trying to polite. _

_Her skin was yellow and blotchy from crying and drinking her way across the Atlantic. Then she sighed deeply. "I'm crying because I don't know where I am or why I am here. I'm crying because I feel very old but I am very young." Savarna's eyes glazed over and she got quiet. "At first it was hot and dry. And then it got cold. And the cold was England."_

_Jack watched her finger her blue scarf. The embroidery around the edge was worn but once it must have been gold, in little heart shapes. Savarna coughed, clutching her blue scarf in her bony hand. "They all wanted me, because I was interesting. Where I come from, it was like… a circus. When I was little I always used to dream about running away to join the gypsies going West. They came to my town once. They were all so shining, so beautiful, so exciting! And then I fell into one of the wagons, and they were wiping off their painted faces and they weren't beautiful. They were wrinkled and hideous and tired, bloated people trying to survive. That's what my home was like. That's me."_

"_Do you miss it?"_

_There was a long, deep silence. Savarna untied her scarf from around her head and underneath she was completely bald, and her head was tattooed and pulsing with strange shapes and strange colors, colors that Jack had never experienced before… his mind twisted around and around, trying to make sense of what he was seeing, but Savarna tied the scarf back around her head, tightly, with the corner hanging out like usual so she could cling to it. "I miss it every minute of every day. And that is why I hate myself." She reached down beside the bed for her bottle and drank long, passionate gulps. "I had one friend. Her name was Radha and she was so old she could count the stars backwards with all their names and tell exactly when it was going to rain. She was so old that she could have started the whole world."_

"_Really?" Jack loved how Savarna didn't make sense. _

"_Sometimes she came to see me. She took care of me after the baby... after you were born. She was so old that she wove my scarf for me a thousand years ago out of dried water from the Nile. Radha was ancient. __And incredibly smart, smarter than even Teague. And she laughed a lot, and her laugh was awful and perfect because when she laughed, you could __hear__ things. Other things. Things most people never hear. Do you understand?_

_Jack understood. She meant hearing things like when he looked at her bald head and saw things. _

"_Does it get cold here, too?"_

"_Yes." Jack hated the cold of England and spent his life plotting a way to escape it. _

_Savarna sighed sadly. "Well, that's that I guess."_

_Jack didn't know what she meant until it got colder, and then he found out because Savarna died._

* * *

"Allahu Akbar," Mahmoud was saying below decks. He was on his face, spending some quality time with the Takbir. "Allahu Akbar min kulli shay." 

He didn't know what he was saying anymore, when he didn't trouble to think about it. The Adhan had become like combing his hair or walking the length of the ship. He would arrive without remembering the journey. It no longer frightened him.

He didn't want to remember the journey. He was waiting for paradise; when he got there, he would forget this earth, this life.

Before being employed by the Viscount, Mahmoud had kept an inn. Only the bravest travelers had dared come to his inn, above the bakery on a busy street in Tangier. There were rats in the walls and always the smell of smoke and refuse from the back alley. Tangier was full of history; with history came various messes that simply never got cleaned up.

His life had been quiet until His Lordship appeared at the inn with his shadowy eyes and dangerous smile. Ex-criminals were so obvious. The man was dressed too well to stop in such a place; only a rogue history could possibly keep him from the grand accommodations provided to wealthy Europeans stopping through on trade affairs. By the time the man left Tangier, though, he had gained Mahmoud's trust and admiration, even his loyalty. He was returning with a ship, he promised, and when he came Mahmoud would join him. Of course, the viscount's notice of the innkeeper was far from disinterested. Mahmoud's father was a steward to the grand vizier, the man who now had sole access to a treasure map of great importance.

In addition to Mahmoud's loyalty, the Viscount had left Tangier with a string of new enemies just waiting to cut his throat.

* * *

_Savarna had a disease. She had a disease that meant somehow that she couldn't contain warmth. She could only make a tiny bit of her own, and she couldn't get it from anywhere else. In India she was all right because she had the men, and they contained warmth quite well. She bathed in their warmth, even though it was dull and throbbing and sometimes, painful. But in England, after a glorious fresh summer, she had no idea how to compete with the pressing cold of too many winter months. She looked at her son asleep in the half purple light of reflected stars on the ice. She had given most of her heat to the boy when he was born, because Radha told her to. Radha had said:_

"_You belong in the desert. But the boy doesn't, so he won't get much warmth in here. Give him your warmth, and he can survive without you. You want that, don't you? You don't want him to be like you, do you?"_

"_No," Savarna had said, agitated and energized from the birthing, "I alone am me. This boy wasn't born from a desert man." _

_Radha nodded and untied Savarna's scarf for her, laying cool clothes on her fiery head until the colors subsided for a while. "Go ahead then. It will hurt but your spirit will cool down a bit." _

_Savarna held the perfect blue boy to her breast and felt the boy's icy little lips, and it did hurt to give away the warmth, but at least her head stopped hurting. Then the baby glowed warm and pink, and slept, as he did for much of his early life, until Teague took him away. He never cried. Radha held Savarna's hand and laid down with her on the bed, saying, "Tell me about the man."_

_Savarna felt dreamy and cold. "He was from the circus," she said. "He was painted a thousand colors and had a river flowing around his neck, like a necklace. When I first saw him, I was terribly thirsty, so I went to him and asked him for a drink from the river. He said he would trade a drink for a kiss. So I kissed him. And when I did I felt water rushing into my mouth, but not like our water here. I felt like I was running up a waterfall. So I kissed him for a long time, until I wasn't thirsty anymore. Then he took my scarf off my head and looked at it. Radha, he looked at my head. Just like that. I felt terribly naked so I asked him for the scarf back, but he said only if I would kiss him again. So I did, even though I was no longer thirsty. But this time when I kissed him I felt covered and dressed, even though he still had my scarf. Then he began to study me. He looked at me for a long time, just sitting across from me in the circus tent, and I felt horrible under his eyes. I asked him to stop looking at me. He said he would if I would kiss him again. So I did, and I felt wonderful and alone then, as though no one was looking at me, as though no one could ever look and really see me. I wondered if he had made me invisible with his kiss. I put my scarf back on my head, and he turned around. And for a long time he didn't look at me or anything. And I began to feel awfully lonely, Radha. Lonely in a way that I didn't quite understand. Almost as though I had died, or worse… as though I had never existed. I said to him, "please kiss me again!" but for a long time he didn't respond. And then he turned around, and his eyes were bleeding blue tears. He didn't say anything, but seemed to look past me. I fell at his knees and said, "I am alone! Make it so I am not alone anymore!" He looked at me hard, and I was afraid of what I saw in his eyes. "Child," he said, "I can do that for you. But you must be sure you really want it." He put his hand on my hand, and I knew what he meant. "I want it," I said. "Make it so I don't have to be alone." _

_Savarna smiled sleepily. "He did what I asked. After that I understood why the desert men came to me." She cradled the sleeping infant against her for a moment, with a sweetly sad look on her face. Radha was quietly watching her. _

"_Savarna, was the man real?" _

_But Savarna was already asleep, her skin cool to touch, her head quiet. _

_Years had passed. And now the boy was becoming a young man, full of life and warmth while Savarna wasted away in the English winter. Savarna only wanted to smell her old home in India: the thick cheap perfume, the mildew on the carpets, the kerosene, the watered down wine and the sticky sweets and the smell of sweat and unwashed hair. Tears went to her eyes and went down her face, with most of her warmth. Savarna could hardly move now. She was glad the boy wasn't in India; she liked thinking about how warm it would be to be inside the little boy, rushing around in his blood, like a breath of air in his warm, slender dark body. _

_Outside the wind had picked up again and another thick layer was recovering all the snow and ice that had fallen last night. Savarna rubbed her eyes, and thought it was strange that her head felt cool under her blue dried-Nile scarf. She went outside. It was very cold. _

_Savarna walked down the wharf on the Thames, on the deserted cobblestone, and she thought she had never heard such a still, cold, quiet. She put her thin, smallish hands in her pockets and walked a long time, down icy dead streets, until she found a bench overlooking a little park. Savarna sat on the bench, tiredly. "At first it was warm," she whispered to the bench, hushed and secretive, "and then it was cold, and the cold was London." She closed her eyes and thought about her son, a stranger to her, a boy who had lived his life on the ocean. "And then it was cold," she said, "And the cold was me." _

_The night flooded Savarna with deep hues of silver and brown, and the white ice clung to her face and did not melt, because she had no warmth. And then Savarna's head began to burn as it had never burned before. She put her little fingers to her head and could feel it burning, fiery, flagrant and fastly changing, all the colors growing, all the shapes expanding, contorting themselves, and Savarna had to close her eyes because the colors were going everywhere, all around her, onto the white snow and filling the dead brown shadows with new colors it had never seen before. Savarna's head burned, and she clung to the blue scarf, and cried in a whisper,_

"_Radha!"_

_The colors grew brighter, and Savarna was thirsty. She pulled herself off the bench and into the snow and put her face in it, but the snow didn't stop her head from burning, and didn't stop her from being thirsty. The circus man was on the bench, painted a thousand blazing colors. Savarna's head grew heavy under the weight of all the colors there, all the colors that had never before existed on earth, and from each color came new music, new shapes, new realities. She could dimly imagine her old home, but the spark was gone from her memory, and it was just a brothel, filthy and empty and tragic. The man from the circus was looking at her again. She put her hands on his thighs and pulled herself up onto her knees, struggling to speak over the soft, sighing wind. _

"_Did Radha send you?" The man didn't say anything. The river around his neck was flowing very quickly, and making Savarna desperately thirsty. And her head was burning so hot, she was afraid to touch it. He carefully pulled the scarf off, and the lights and colors escaped all over without the Nile to encase them. Savarna dropped her heavy head into his lap. "Make it so my head doesn't burn anymore," she whispered, pleading, hoarse, and thirsty. "Make it so my head doesn't burn anymore."_

"_I can do what you ask," he breathed. "But you must know then that there will be no warmth left in you." Savarna knew what he meant. "You must decide if you really want it." Savarna's head blazed hotter for a moment, and her eyes were melting in her head, all their insides trickling down her face. She gasped, _

"_I want it! Make it so my head doesn't burn anymore!" The circus man was weeping blue tears. He lifted Savarna to his chest and held her there, close, and put his bright lips on hers until she could taste the rushing water again, and she closed her dripping eyes to the snow, and her head slowly began to cool like clay baked in a kiln, and when dawn came she was dead on the bench with no scarf around her bald, white head._

* * *

Jack wasn't a saint, but he felt rather near to one after watching Elizabeth walk away from him, desires unsatisfied. He couldn't remember ever feeling so much distress. His mind leaped back over the words they had spoken, the loneliness she had expressed, her dissatisfaction at how he had changed. Could it be possible she had preferred his rough and tumble pirate ways? Could it be possible she didn't approve of his wealth, his surety, his restraint? 

"Oh Lizzie," he whispered into the night air, hunching over the rail, "Surely you understand I only changed because of you…"

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	5. Tangier

**Ch 5. I am totally blown away by the amazingly encouraging reviews. You guys are awesome. I appreciate it so, so much. I hope the rest can live up to your expectations!**

* * *

Cape Malabata opened in an esoteric array of colors before the day-breaking breeze. Gradually decaying since the English departed decades ago, Tangier still held the pride of great history, as the Christian slaves of the Sultan struggled to rebuild what their European counterparts had wrought in destruction. The past held sway over everyone.

"It's overwhelming," Elizabeth admitted as she walked down the gangplank behind Jack. She shielded her eyes, allowing them to adjust to the brightness. Neither had mentioned the miracle that had happened in the rain last night. Neither wanted to break the spell of memory.

"Built by the gods, or so they say," Jack said, tilting his face upward to catch the light. The wharf bustled with activity; cargo ships, East India traders, and French and Spanish ambassadors' envoys cast a sense of rich culture over a town that was a haven for wanderers. Jack hadn't slept, but Elizabeth hadn't either. They both brightened their smiles and pretended. "Some believe that the hero Heracles bedded a goddess after her husband was taken from her. Their child built the city and named it for her."

Elizabeth was intrigued. Jack gently took her elbow and led her towards the edges of the marketplace, just bordering the street and the water's edge. "It's best if we remain somewhat anonymous while we're here. We don't want to announce our presence, if you understand."

"Jack! Jack Sparrow!" a voice caught them by surprise, and a skinny brown youth flung himself from the crowd and towards Jack. "You came back! We knew you would—it's been too long, my friend, too long!"

"Aye, too long," Jack said, grinning at the boy and greeting him with a hand on his heart. "Marhaba, kefak?"

"Alhamdulilah," replied the boy, kissing his fingers and indicating the sky.

"I don't go by that name much anymore," Jack returned easily, glancing around the crowd to see if anyone had noticed the outbreak. "Let's keep it between ourselves, na'am?" The boy smiled winsomely and nodded.

"You will come to my house, yes? Come quickly, Mahmoud is with you I see."

"Of course," Jack said, noticing Mahmoud behind him. The two shared a loaded look, and Mahmoud leaned forward to speak softly to Jack.

Out of the corner of her eye, Elizabeth saw a few hooded figures edging around the crown, clearly eyeing them from beneath their wraps. She grabbed Jack's arm and he looked up at once, assessing the situation. To her astonishment, he lifted his head as if to expose his identity. He shrugged at her. "I rather guessed we wouldn't be able to come through unnoticed. We may as well deal with them head on, don't you think?"

"Does it matter what I think?" she muttered.

"Yes," he said, fixing his gaze on her. But in the midst of all this, he wanted to know he could protect her. His pistol and sword were readily available to him beneath his cloak, though his mind hazy and restlessly circling a slew of dark dreams that had kept him company through the night. He didn't like to think that Elizabeth was at risk, nor that he had allowed her to leave the ship and accompany him. The marketplace had taken on an atmosphere of danger, and Jack instinctively brought his hand to his right shoulder, feeling the dull ache of time.

* * *

_Angéle was dead. Drenched in her blood, Jack raced through the narrow winding streets of Port Majestic, living his worst nightmare. Drums, Royal Navy drums, more shots, more screams, no survivors, no more pirates. "Yo ho, Yo ho, a Pirate's death for me…" _

_A bullet struck him in the shoulder. He barely noticed the blood seeping down his arm, the numbness spreading from his fingers. He wasn't thinking, he was running. Oh God, oh God, oh God, Bella. No more plans, no more witty retorts, no more evading destiny. _

_Jack Sparrow fell to his knees on the dock before a blood red sunset. His crew floated dead in the shallow water beside the ship; Cotton was there, his throat slit, Howell and Bonnet nearby, Henry, the Goldsmith boy, one by one they appeared to him. And there was Bella, her fragile body broken by the fall onto the rocks, her tiny black eyes staring lifelessly through the crimson water._

_Jack raised his hands to the gathering night, while behind him a slew of soldiers loaded their rifles and took aim._

* * *

"Damn you, Jack Sparrow," Elizabeth muttered, taking quick little steps in order to keep up with Mahmoud and yet maintain balance on the uneven stone of the twisting passages of Tangier. Somehow he had convinced her to follow Mahmoud to the inn and await him there, give him time to deal with their intruders. The conversation had happened in rushed Arabic, giving Elizabeth no time to argue. She was aching to use her own dagger. The thought of violence seemed bizarrely attractive to her at the moment. 

A thousand shades of yellow surrounded her, interspersed with the odd blue of painted tile or the rising roof of a Mosque. The bricks beneath her feet were hot and filthy; the dwellings around her a rich mustard that trapped the heat. Elizabeth's loose garments felt stifling; her hair clung damply to her neck. She had forgotten what constant heat felt like. The bright eyed boy was beckoning them onwards, and Elizabeth knotted her hands into fists, thinking of her own beautiful son. Where would he be now, she wondered? How had they explained her disappearance to him? Was he forgetting her already? She closed her eyes and pictured him asleep, as she had seen him the night she left. Sandy hair falling over his freckled face, curled on one side, peaceful. How she loved him! How she longed to share her previous adventures with him, or introduce him to the world she was now living in aboard the _White Araby_. She longed to introduce him to Jack. She shook her head. If she survived another five years, if she found it within herself to believe again, she would somehow return to the Caribbean with the boy and wait for her husband. Wouldn't she? Why did the thought of it seem so burdensome, so tragic?

Because she wasn't in love with Will anymore. With all her heart she cared for him, cherished his memory; perhaps, had things been different, they would have remained in blissful young love the rest of their lives. But fate had intervened, parted them. And she had grown up. Grown old, in some ways. Grown cold and realistic. Given up.

And now she saw that against her will, her heart was moving on.

* * *

_How Jack survived might have become the greatest legend ever told about him, had there been anyone else in the town to observe it. Jack himself didn't know the story. He had felt the bullets enter his body, tear his flesh, sear his insides, break him apart. He had fallen into the ocean beside his comrades and his daughter, died with them, rotted with them. He had drifted out to sea under the blood red sunset, his grief overturned by the ending of his own life._

_And yet he awoke. Beneath a golden Caribbean morning, the sun already high in the sky. To a deserted town still sticky with blood from the raid that ended so much for him. And he stood up. Awake. Alone. Alive. Inexplicably, unbearably alive._

* * *

Jack had been steadily working his way westward through the market, which seemed to produce ever more cloaked men interested in taking his life. Behind him were three swordsmen that consistently brushed against his back and created quite a lot of shallow scratches there. At first these tempestuous lunges were amusing and presented somewhat of a challenge as he tried to outrun them, but now that he was getting weary and curious as to whom they worked for, he knew he would have to face them square-on. He was rather out of breath, and his back was beginning to be badly mangled; he could feel the blood seeping through his clothes, though the pain had not come. He spied a nearly deserted courtyard ahead and made for it, as a flick from behind jabbed his side, drawing a triumphant grunt of laughter from whatever stood under the drapes. He tried to pace his breathing as he sprinted into the center of the area and swung around fairly to face his attackers. Only in Tangier could you engage in a full on battle in the markets without anyone caring much. 

They took a step back, not expecting his affront. Jack twirled his sword menacingly, enjoying their discomfort and using the mild stall to get a hold of his breath and his spastic muscles; the first came at him with more gallantry than skill, and by his wide swinging arcs around and not through him, Jack could tell that he, too, was weary. His sword felt heavy and rather sticky in his fingers, but at least he had the advantage of complete sight. The attacker's sword crashed against Jack's loudly, causing him to stumble back a few steps. The courtyard seemed to shrink as the other two closed in on the two of them.

"Curse you!" Jack yelled, whipping his hand knife from its little sheath, "Can't you see we are busy? Wait a moment, I'll be done presently…" At that he plunged the knife into the first man and he howled, dropping his sword. Freeing his weapon, Jack brought it down swiftly on his writhing adversary, careful to avoid a glance at his eyes. It was easier to kill when he thought of them as animals, mindless and empty.

But men were not animals. Men could be cruel. And men could know things, things that an animal should never know. Jack did not want to imagine this man's child, at home in a bed somewhere, asleep probably, dreaming, smelling soft and milky and warm. He did not want to imagine the man's wife gazing out the window, waiting for him, waiting until the winds changed and the air grew cold again, waiting until she knew it was useless to wait, but then she would not be able to stop, and forever she would wait, forever she would let down her hair at night to be ready, and tingle inside when there was a knock on the door. Jack did not want to think these things. He wanted to free himself, determine who had been sent to kill him and why. Most of all, he wanted to find Elizabeth and get them both away from this place as soon as possible. A brief errand had led them here; the sooner it was accomplished, the better.

At any rate in the swiftness of the moment he yanked his sword back, splashing blood across the two remaining victims, whose arms were quite ready to avenge their twitching companion. The broader one who barreled toward Jack met a knife with his eye, as Jack gathered by the way he leaped back and screamed, tearing at the hood. Rapidly, Jack kicked his chest to knock from him any remaining breath and seized his weapon, leaving the knife where it had struck; after all, it was just a little knife, a little thing.

_Three swords, one more man to go… Quick breath in, no swallowing because my mouth's too dry. Last man charging, duck, roll, keep the blades away from your body! Too many swords, drop one. Now he has two and I have two. Bad move. Bad idea. Focus! Keep your chest and neck covered. Don't let him know you're tired. His footwork is bad. Good upper arm strength, but he could trip. Trip him! Down! He's down! No, back up, too late, missed the chance. He's more careful now. Comes at me with precision, not emotion. He fights like a pirate. Strange… focus! Quick bend to the left— that was too close. He's gaining the advantage. _

_How much time has passed? I have to go, I have to get to the inn! Elizabeth… focus! _

Jack swung his sword toward the neck of the next attacker but he nodded his head down just in time, while managing to prick Jack's arm. Flickering lights bounded off the glass of the courtyard windows. Jack had one more chance, and then he would collapse. He gathered a last desperate breath to calm his nerves and raced to the far end of the area, positioning himself in front of the highest wall. The last attacker took a moment. Paced before Jack. Sweat trickled down Jack's forehead, into his eyes, and loudly splashed onto the stone beneath his feet. The air, the noise, his own awareness was slow and hazy. He saw his attacker, stooping, leaning on his knees, hostaging his own breath. The market sounds, still loud and useless, the faltering heartbeat of the city, throbbed in Jack's slow hot blood. At last the man came flying towards him and landed on the point of the sword, released at the right moment… Jack left it there, deep inside the man, as though it was growing out the way branches sprout from a severed tree in late springtime. He left the man's cloak on him, so that he would not have to acknowledge that he was human. Somehow he knew the man's face would come to him in dreams anyway. When had death become such a normal part of life?

With a pause to recover his breath, Jack returned to the unfortunate man who had received a knife in his eye. "Tell me who sent you and I'll spare you," Jack said wearily, thinking the phrase sounded familiar and overused. The man shuddered.

"Moulay Ismail," was the croaking reply.

"The Sultan?" Jack asked, a bit confused. Though he knew he had enemies, he didn't realize they were so illustrious, nor so well informed. He had been here all of eight hours, most of that time spent sleepless in the harbor.

"He knows what you have come for," his victim yawled, "He sends us to warn you, you shall not leave here with it alive."

"Ah, but I shall," Jack said faintly, turning towards the inn. He called back, "You may tell him that, if you can find your way to him. I'm afraid there's nothing he can do to stop me."

* * *

_His despair was thick and exquisite. Blinding, pulsing, overwhelming, shading every inch of life, tinting the past and destroying the future. Dearly and intimately known, he had battled and rejected it, run from it and hidden from it, anguished over it, embraced it; perhaps one day he would find he had learned from it. Outside of Port Majestic he set fire to the Black Pearl and watched it burn through the night. It was the third time he had watched his ship sink to the depths, third time's charm, third time pays for all. When nothing was left in the water but ashes and driftwood, he turned his back on the town as he had once turned his back on England. _

_He found deliverance on the roads. _

_Roads. Dark morning green carried its own fragrance of maturing night-life intrigue to the misty mountain roads. Roads fully nude of the bustle and complacency afternoon would bring. Roads that were paths, paths that were the barest whisping thread of direction, directions that hung on ancient proverbs of journeys and destinations. Roads that the old ones had walked before him, paths they had sailed that stole those brief pre-dawn, primordial moments to lose themselves in the fog of new thought. Long trudgings had solidified them into compact, predictable wanderings, with endings and beginnings. But sometimes the roads rebelled. _

_Something new had been born in his soul. The miracle was not the new thing itself, but the birth… the tearing agony, the separation, the emptiness that followed, the too-often survival. This was the miracle. _

_Everything lost traction. Things that once clung to him with balmy fingers slipped free now; old fears, old needs, old ways. Deep the roots had gone, and long it took them to tunnel back to the surface. Long the seeds had been dormant. Sharp had been the hunger of waiting; wrenching had been the inferno of change. _

_And the roads all led to the ocean, upon which he had given up everything that he once was. From El Dorado to Gardiner's Island, Chesapeake Bay to Nombre de Dios, Oak Island, and what seemed like a thousand other places, Jack gathered his wealth and left his pain buried behind him. And he knew with every step that a force stronger than the tides was pulling him back to a place he had vowed never to return..._

* * *

The inn was anonymous, the perfect hiding place. Jack felt his tension evaporate as he saw Elizabeth above, pacing the roof of the sun-bleached brick building. The grace of her movements entranced him for a moment, and he paused in the shadow of the building to watch her. She had once been so fiery, so hard, like obsidian to him, something to be fought. Now even her body had softened, though her old strength was within. Why did he put her in danger? He remembered the proud, biting words he had used to convince her to come. He knew too well how to manipulate people, how to have his own way. He was tempted to let the Sultan find him, just for the challenge of winning him over. The brief skirmish in the market had thickened his blood, reminded him of his pirate days. He envisioned the sharp sting of rum down his throat, but instead his mind seemed to taste the salty lips of a betraying Pirate King, still untamed, still unbroken. 

Mahmoud was in the courtyard inside with the guests Jack had asked him to bring. Elizabeth had seen him; she rushed down the stairs and pulled him inside, giving away too much with her quick breathing.

"Thank God," she was muttering. "You were gone such a long time…"

Jack shot her an amused look, and kept his back turned away from her. "A long time? You lived well enough without me for five years. No need to worry if I'm gone an hour."

An hour that had felt like a lifetime. Elizabeth tried to conceal her frustration, tried to be calm, like Jack. But his face was flushed and smudged, his eyes alight; he was irresistible in his warmth. She flung her arms around him and then instinctively drew back, feeling the dampness of his tunic. Blood, not much, but it was Jack's and that made Elizabeth feel faint.

"What on earth? What's happened to you?"

"A bit of swordplay, that's all."

"You ought to have let me come. I could've covered you." She was pushing him up the stairs towards the quarters Mahmoud's brother had set aside for them. "Or maybe you could have been clever and just shot them."

Ah, the pistol! Jack hadn't remembered it; he had wanted to use his sword. A pistol was so fast and meaningless. "Were you worried about me?" he mocked, easing down onto the bed and stripping off his tunic. Her cheeks colored and he wondered whether the site of his bare skin or his many scars made her uncomfortable. He was well aware his body was a map of the dangers he had survived. Hardly something that would be attractive to the refined English lady Elizabeth had become.

She bit her lip and sank down behind him, a bowl of water in her hand. She began cleaning his wounds mindlessly. "I wasn't worried. I was angry you left me."

Ah. So Lizzie wanted in on the action. "I thought it best to find out who they were before I set you loose on them." He repressed a groan; she was not being very gentle. "You don't have to do that, Elizabeth. I can manage fine."

She shoved the bowl into his hands. "Very well."

"Wait!" he laughed, grabbing her hand as she stood. "You are angry?"

"I'm not. But you won't tell me anything. You haven't told me what we're doing here, why those men were after you…" she was shaking with emotion. "And you haven't told me why you don't sleep… why you are colder than England… why you won't call me Lizzie…"

He let the bowl drop and shatter on the floor, and took her into his arms. The sight of her tears hurt him. "Lizzie, Lizzie," he whispered into her ear, "I'm only trying to protect you."

"Well, stop!" she cried, pulling away. "Stop making decisions for me to try and protect me. Let me make my own choices, Jack… even if they are mistakes."

They were staring at each other. A knock on the door unfroze them. Mahmoud, with Jack's visitors. Elizabeth shook her head slightly as Jack wrapped the tunic back around his body, and slipped out the door.

* * *

Hours later, Elizabeth sat in the darkness and the heat of night on the roof, listening to the fading goodbyes of Jack's guests. She had half-expected more excitement after Jack's earlier encounter, but the inn seemed to hide them from unfriendly eyes. Strains of music and chatter from the street below drifted around Elizabeth, and she leaned her head against a partition and sighed. 

"_Elizabeth… I think you made a very good decision today. Couldn't be more proud of you. But even a right decision, if made for the wrong reasons, can be a wrong decision…"_

The problem was that Elizabeth's mind was already made up. She had made her decision the night Jack appeared in her bedroom, enigmatic, forceful, and haunted. She had made her decision upon meeting his eyes—for all he had changed, the beautiful warmth of Jack's dark eyes was exactly the same, irresistible. She had made her decision when he held out his hand to her and Elizabeth had caught a glimpse of the old pirate brand on his forearm, hidden beneath that ridiculously expensive sleeve of his coat. And over and over, every step she had taken, every inch she had sailed away from London had merely confirmed the choice she had already made.

Could a wrong decision, made for all the right reasons, be a right decision?

She had lost faith in everything. She had given up all hope. She had abandoned the son that she loved, the chest she was meant to guard, the life she had resigned herself to living. From the depths of despair, wasn't it natural to grasp for a piece of happiness you happened to see? If you had already lost everything, if you couldn't possibly sink any lower, what harm could there be in giving in to it?

"_You thought I loved him…"_ But she didn't think she believed in love anymore. Not the love she and Will had so often talked about. Not the love she had lavished upon him, not the love that had inspired her to marry him. _I'd rather believe in curiosity_, her mind seemed to say.

"_Curiosity… you're going to want it… to act on selfish impulse…"_ She had acted on selfish impulse, she knew what it tasted like. But that taste wasn't enough, had never been enough, had made her a thousand times thirstier, and more curious. She thought of her brief day with Will, a day that had been, more than anything else, a final goodbye. And Will was just as inexperienced as she; though he had pleased her, kissed her until she moaned, showed his love for her in the trembling gentleness of his hands, she had watched him sail away feeling cheated. What she wanted was a lifetime of discovery, freedom to explore his body, she wanted to feel him beside her when she slept and know him like she knew herself. One fleeting day was not enough, and Elizabeth felt with surety that it was part of the curse—a taste that could not possibly satisfy was all the Captain and his Beloved were allowed, and then years upon years of anguish. For what? For what were they hoping? Another transitory taste after too many years with someone who would be a stranger?

"_It would never have worked out between us,"… "You keep telling yourself that, darlin'."_ No it wouldn't have worked out between them then; between her stubbornness and his restlessness, between her commitment to Will and his obsession with freedom, between her pride and both of their memories. He had been afraid of her, angry with her, glad to be rid of her… and she had been eager to forget him as well, to lose herself in Will's safe arms, to pretend that she had found something worth spending her life for.

"_He was married to a girl once… her death broke his heart…"_ So he had found love, found a reason to give up his pirating ways and settle down, found a way to forget her. And then it had been taken away from him. Elizabeth felt her heart writhe in painful compassion and empathy. She knew the pain of loss all too well. Life was so desperately unfair; love so terribly costly. Was it worth the pain? Elizabeth didn't know.

But, she reasoned, there was no need to wonder because her decision really had nothing to do with love. It had to do with the magnetic power of his eyes, the way he looked when he slept, the mystery he remained to her. It had to do with the way her body responded to his and the way her mind lost every argument she made against him.

She was at his door. Flushed, terrified, and recklessly at his door. What if he didn't want her? What if he rejected her? She knocked, the sound of her hand on the wood sending tremors down her body.

* * *


	6. If You Were the Moon

**Ch. 6. Thank you immensely for the reviews… I swear, I will get back to the plot after this… I wrote this chapter at the same time as the previous one, and I thought about leaving it for a few days, but what the heck, Here it is. Enjoy, please review!**

* * *

The knock echoed for three seconds too long. And there was no answer.

* * *

_It was little things. The hateful way her skin tingled and all the fine slender hairs stood up when she smelled the night air. The groaning coolness of early evening. It was keeping her eyes lowered, always half shut, like an attic door, hiding secrets that ought not to be secret. Trying to explain in the language (too short, too dead) what she felt. And all she felt were little things. The silk that clung to her white body, the way the men placed their hands on her waist as she waltzed with them, politics and tea, and a disdain for anything commonplace. And most of all, how she gradually lowered her head, unable to keep her chin up even in the presence of her son. The heir to the pirate throne he was, and the heir to a shattered identity. She could see only those erstwhile flashes across the sky: bright moments that enlivened her, and the darkness that always inevitably followed. It was an emptiness that left her clinging to a memory, reaching out towards the departed, a draught that forced her to close her eyes and drown in the images, images that she hoped would reappear so that she could ascertain their truth, their reality. But even reality lost its importance as the years passed. For a time, Elizabeth had thought about leaving. Leaving was an easy skill. She dressed herself in her cloak one night, and stood on the threshold, wanting to escape the people, the return to London, the life she had fallen into. Very clearly she saw her future laid out… if she left… another city, another land she would find, another Jack to battle and adore, another Will to lose. She saw her imprisonment, everywhere, in every city. Yes, yes, she could flee. But then she would have to flee again and again, and spend her life fleeing. She would grow used to the road, to her traveling cloak, to the slow seepage of the elements, to saying goodbye quickly without a care. Elizabeth looked out the door, with a sigh of longing. If she were going she must go now, before her eyes went around for that last fatal glance… too late! Her son was asleep in the moonlight. His breath came steadily, lips slightly parted, chest rising even and unaffected. Elizabeth was reminded of the first time she had awoken to find him asleep beside her, a tiny infant, entirely dependent on her. Tears slipped down Elizabeth's face and she cast off her cloak desperately. She must stay. For one reason and every reason. Suddenly she was very tired; in the dim shadows of that night she undressed, lay down by the failing hearth, and fell asleep. She never thought to leave again, not until that hooded figure appeared at her window and exploited her weakness as no one had ever been able to do._

* * *

From outside the inn came a divine silence, and magnetically Elizabeth was pulled to the hall's window. Elizabeth looked at the sky above the ocean, and it looked back at her. Harsh violet hues brushed over drops of dwindling moonlight; the evening was dying through fire. The horizon held the texture of sanded pine, scented of almonds and milk, starving for the earth. The violent beauty of the scene made Elizabeth shiver with strength and longing, both welling up painfully within her. Was Will alive somewhere far away? Did he even exist anymore? Through the narrow alleys of merged stone the world seemed here and now, reality redefined and excluding the hazy and the obscure that had once been existence. And all her memories were distorted, as she suspected Jack's were. Why did these inconsistent, embellished memories, these endless nightmares rule their lives so absolutely? Would they ever be free of them? 

She turned back to the door, leaning against it, caressing it. And she heard the sound of Jack's breath catch. She hesitated, and then, before she could stop herself, pushed open the door.

Jack stood with his back to her before an open window, a candle burning before him and casting his shadow on every wall. Where had her resolution gone? Disappeared with one look at him there, in isolation, intensely unaware of her. She studied Jack's back, the line of his shoulders, the braid of his hair, the loose Indian garments that showed faintly the outline of his body in the candle-light. She was familiar with the curve of his flesh there, his neck, the muscles and the skin, dark and soft and enticing, electric. His eyes focused vaguely out the narrow window at the night, a thousand thoughts dancing across his mind, and she was none of them.

His shoulders tensed and Elizabeth felt from across the room his acknowledgment and perhaps, fear, but he did not turn. Elizabeth was in a torment of desire and confusion, half resolved to flee. The Moroccan air around them was full, overflowing, wilder and more potent that ancient wine, more capturing than desire. Each breath was the first breath of the earth. Elizabeth realized how harshly she breathed, how awkward were her movements, how inhibited was her skin by the thick clothing.

"What did you mean when you said I was colder than England?"

Elizabeth couldn't quite believe he had spoken. She blinked. "Colder than England, colder than the moon. It's a line from a book." In the torridity between them it was impossible to remember snow, to remember cold purple evenings covered in a hushed white blanket. The heat was a trickster.

"And what does it mean?" His hair fluttered darkly around his face.

"The moon reflects only the sun's light, and never the sun's warmth. So it is with the land I come from. So it has been with you."

There was a long pause. Was he hurt by those words? "I want you to think about what you are doing right now, Elizabeth Turner. And then I want you to turn around and walk out the door. Do you understand?"

"Perfectly," she replied, shocked at how cool her voice sounded, how in control. He refused to look at her, though from across the room his hands were itching to touch hers, his heart bursting to meet hers. "Before I go, answer me one question."

"Anything." Jack wished she hadn't come. He should have shut the door in her face before it was too late.

"Did you mean it when you said things would have never worked between us?"

"Yes." The answer was forced.

"Then," Elizabeth stepped closer, causing him to flinch, "Am I right in guessing you have vowed never to give your heart away again?"

"Yes." _Oh God, stop torturing me. Get out of here before I ruin you._

"I only ask because I have vowed never to take another person's heart," she whispered. He was impossibly jaded, a thousand years old, hardened and at odds with life. He had seen all the world, and valued nothing. Was she a fool to try and reach him? "I am not here because I'm in love with you, Jack. I'm not asking for anything of the kind."

"What you're asking of me, I can't give you."

* * *

"_Jack," Elizabeth whispered, strangely stirred by the sound of his name, "You know the lady tends to choose the hero rather than the rogue." _

"_Oh don't be absurd, love. In a few short years the rogue will be all the rage and the hero will be a banker. Ye're not quite a lady anymore, as it happens."_

_Elizabeth gasped, trying her best to appear shocked and put out. As expected, Jack Sparrow was not fooled. He grinned that charming, devilish grin, and then pinned her arms against the sand with a lecherous little laugh. There would be no one to hear her if she screamed; the island they were marooned on together may as well be the ends of the earth. Elizabeth tried desperately to decide what a lady did in such a predicament, but the sharp release and pulsing excitement all over her body was clouding her vision like a hurricane. She had only one card to play—scorn._

"_Oh Jack," she said with a disdainful tilt of her nose, "You have the most dreadful memory. I am not a common Tortuga girl. I am Miss Elizabeth Swann, a woman of honor and nobility. You are hardly more than common riffraff, for all your paraded fame." _

_Well that certainly didn't please him. A black look crossed his face—and for the briefest moment, intense vulnerability. He seemed about ready to speak, to defend himself, to confide in her perhaps his true position, but he flipped the scorn card from her hand as easily as a jester flips a coin. His play outmatched hers by a mile. _

"_Miss Elizabeth. You forget that I am stronger than ye and have the only weapon between us. I take without asking, and if I really wanted something of ye, rest assured it would not be long before I had it in me greedy hands. Luckily for your precious honor, me interest in you is purely political... for the time being anyway. So check your gambits, darlin', and decide how to make your next move. I'll be waiting." And with that, he released his tight grip on her arms and, making a mocking bow, disappeared into the trees._

* * *

Elizabeth had been told once that a wise man spends days like a miser counting coins. She was no miser. She had paid dearly for this day, and would pay dearly for this night. Already she felt a loathed maudlin spreading, waxing like a lullaby over brown withered hearts too long left in autumn. 

She could walk out the door and forget. Forget her words, forget his eyes, forget it all. In the night forgetting was easy. In the night forgetting came like a cradle and a myth and rooted itself like hemlock and was easy to have, so easy.

But she was unafraid, suddenly sure. "Look at me Jack. Look at me."

He turned, slowly. He forced himself to blink aside the memories that surged in to fill his mind's eye and instead observe Elizabeth, in a garment of simple linen that clung to the soft contours of her body, that draped subtly around her breasts and fell against her hips and shifting legs (still thin and lithe, the left foot curved around the right ankle in a curious posture that cause her spine to arc). Elizabeth shivered at the look in his eyes—threatening, and yet adoring. It was she who crossed the room to stand before him, so close their faces nearly touched. _Don't argue, don't protect me… not this time, Jack_.

* * *

_Gibbs had talked long to her on her voyage across the Atlantic, while she stared silently back to the West. In distant lands, he told her, lightning would strike the earth and set fire to a forest, and once the fire had been quelled, the grove would flourish because the old and decaying had been swept away, making room for new life, new beginnings. This Elizabeth found to be true. _

_Yet the old forest was the best to walk in, to attempt to fathom. The old forest understood the ticklish language of the birds, the sonorous, spreading language of the soil, and the tender, twisted language of the human psyche. The old forest was closest to eternity. This was also true. So the old and the new must be taken together, the new must be nurtured and given much faith; the old, revered, heard, defended. Gibbs said, they could not survive without either. What would it be, he asked her, if depth could be measured, and the strength of a heart tested without trial, and love put through the refiner's flames without pyre? How would one ever know the power of one's love without suffering and loss? And the words that had seemed a string of nonsense to Elizabeth on the journey made sense later, through the pain of giving birth, the pain of watching her son grow apart from her, the pain of leaving him._

* * *

Slowly, so slowly, Elizabeth stood onto her tiptoes to kiss Jack's mouth, hardly daring to breath, hardly daring to brush his lips before she pulled back. "Your lips are chapped," she said softly. She wanted to tell him to rub salve on them, to keep from licking them in the wind. But his face was changing, a hunger came into his eyes, a dangerous light. 

And then his arms slid around her, loose and burning against her skin. Her breathing had quickened. Tenderly, passionately, Jack's hands held hers, and brushed up her arms, her neck, her face in the shadows. Unconsciously he guided her arm around him, to his far shoulder, up his body and to his lips. She pressed her head against his chest, letting the tangled hair fall against his face and he kissed it, and brushed it gently away so that he might touch her cheeks, her eyes. Jack's touch was electric, gently forcing her arm around him again, pressing her slender unknowing hand against his body.

Elizabeth melted into Jack. Slender fingers traced the face she knew so profoundly. The neck with its unbearably sweet contours, the jaw lifting upwards, the mouth parted, always hiding a smile, the nose leading to a creased forehead, old before its time. She leaned her head against his neck; his arms were possessive, his heart pulsing, her lips resting, roving across his face, as her breathing faded into the scent of Jack Sparrow— the pirate, the stranger, the man she held in her arms at night to keep the past at bay.

They could not speak, for the world was too near. Yet words might have torn apart the blessed silence of their much-stronger language; all are wise, until they open their mouths and speak. The wind whipped through the window, euphoria encasing them, for a moment where their hearts might venture out of the fortresses and meet together in the profound, passionate, inviolate air between them. It was the sum of all moments among them, the surrender, the awakening.

"I don't think we will endure this way, Jack… I'm afraid you will vanish like a dream…" _Like you have before…_

"You must decide what is worth fighting for," Jack said, voicing that bitter wisdom she hated. When she looked stricken, he asked, "What is the matter?"

"Nothing," she whispered, swallowing her tears.

"You're crying," Jack whispered to her, somehow pirate-like in his naiveté.

"Yes, I am," she laughed bitterly. And instead of the mockery, and the distance she resignedly anticipated, he laid his warm mouth by her ear and murmured,

"Elizabeth, you must decide for yourself, because I already know. _You_ are worth fighting for, and worth dying for. You always have been for me."

* * *


	7. Jalal e Din Rumi

**Ch. 7. Thank you so much for the lovely reviews! You all are amazing, I really mean that. You've just blown me away. Cheers! **

* * *

The one-eyed merchant in the alley crouched next to a cedar wood fire, beneath a sky full of heavy yellow clouds tainted by the moon and coming rain. Mahmoud passed him by, feeling the night devoid of meaning, empty of thought. The ship was in the harbor, ready to sail. Jack's errand was accomplished, his guests ready to depart with them. With the dawn they would be free to disappear from the town, for all the Sultan's attempts to find them. 

Mahmoud wasn't sorry to go. He didn't belong in this city anymore; he didn't belong anywhere. The infectious nature of the Viscount had worn off on him: the nature of a wanderer, belonging no where, restless and always ready to depart. His father would disapprove; his father loved the city, loved the life he had built here for his family. The man had been a story-teller before he was employed by the Sultan. When Mahmoud was young, he would wait for his father to return from the café at night and then listen as he sat outside with his uncles and friends, ringed with smoke and sipping mint tea. "I want to tell beauty and textures and colors and life in all its shattered glory…" his father would begin in that cracked, intriguing voice. Everyone would lean in closer, even if they had heard it a thousand times. "I want to tell stories of love and honor, truth and passion, all the heights of humanity. I don't want the common, the ordinary, the tired. I do not want complacency; I want desperation. I crave the imperfect, the weeping, laughing, drunken, dancing, dying imperfect: all the things that shine inexplicably shameful and elusive. I crave the immortal, the great, the unreachable and the unknowable. Let me whisper to you of my longings, of the truth that can be reflected from a story…" and then he would leap into a legend of a thousand and one nights of stories, of the jiin, or the luck of poor street boys or the beauty of queens. And life had seemed rich and full, leavened by those stories, until the Viscount came and shattered any hope of peace.

Mahmoud remembered with a twitch of his moustache the commotion the city had been thrown into the first time Jack had escaped with the precious map to the treasure he now sought, and the second time he had escaped with the keys to the royal treasury itself. Of all the places the Viscount traveled, he returned to Tangier the most frequently, and every time, accomplished some new feat of impossible daring. Each time he gained some spectacular treasure, and each time, he made an enemy of someone who had once been close to him.

* * *

The only thing Elizabeth could immediately think was that the Jack Sparrow she had once known, the Jack Sparrow with whom it would never have worked, would not in a thousand years have uttered those words that set her heart racing and her hands trembling. She couldn't take them in, couldn't quite understand the full meaning of what he said, couldn't believe that she could be worth so much to someone. Five self-deprecating years had passed in which she had learned to despise herself, to despise her own life… and her decision to abandon her son hadn't helped matters much. Worth fighting for? Worth dying for? To someone she had treated like an enemy for so long? 

She had come to his room with nothing but her needs—the physical desires awoken after so long in hiding. She had come to his room expecting nothing, certainly not the sincerity and fervor Jack was offering. He was so vulnerable he seemed naked before her; it was disquieting and yet, impossibly hypnotic.

"Why didn't you come for me in England sooner?" It was the wrong thing to say, but the words just slipped out.

"Because you weren't ready to leave."

How had he known that? She retreated back into his arms, unable to think clearly, knowing only the sweet satisfaction of being held. "You've changed so much, Jack… I don't know who you are… why you would say those things to me…"

"I changed because of you," he said hoarsely, unable to meet her eyes.

"I was just a girl when you knew me…"

"That's just the point, love," his speech had regressed, and Elizabeth caught it. "You were everything I stood against. Privileged, pure, naïve as Christ… untouchable. A man would have to give his whole life to get next to the likes of you, and I knew I wasn't fool enough to bother. But I tried living my way. Things fell apart."

"But you are Captain Jack Sparrow…"

"Was. Was Captain Jack Sparrow."

"And who are you now?" She kept him in her arms so that he would understand she wasn't battling him, wasn't arguing. She didn't really want to talk, to risk admitting how deeply her heart was involved.

Jack felt her hands on his face, holding it, while her fingers searched across his cheeks and forehead and then his eyes. A quiver shot through every nerve in his body. She wasn't a girl anymore; wasn't even the Pirate King he had loved to unsettle. She was a woman, fully aware of her own attractiveness, fully aware of his needs as a man. He was already undressing her without realizing it, his blood beginning to pulse with the inferno of desire. She pulled him toward the bed, and he seemed to recover his senses.

"Elizabeth…"

She had never known him until this moment— never known the resolve that could come of his judgment. And yet for all that, he looked weary, anguished. What would a man like this give his life for? What could possibly tempt him to waver now? _Oh Jack, to hell with that. If you're certain about this treasure we're after, we'll be able to undo the damage later, won't we? Don't argue with me now… I couldn't bear it…_ And to ensure he didn't, she pressed her lips against his, leaving him no room to say no. How could he base his decisions on factors that were little more than dusty relics of two bygone people? There was something severely tantalizing about leaving the past in its place. If she could release Jack from the torture of his history, perhaps there was hope she could be saved from hers. For too long she had borrowed life from a troubled past or an uncertain future.

"Elizabeth… don't do this to me," he moaned, but he was inadvertently urging her onward; she had already won. She was unquestionably thrilled to find that for all Jack's wisdom, he was still a man, still unable to resist her, still attuned to her yearnings. Their clothes landed in a pile on the woven carpet, along with any remaining moral arguments.

They moved slowly, taking their time in learning each other's body. They weren't foolishly impassioned youths any longer; the desire they felt was more profound and unhurried, more tied to their emotions, enhanced by the nights they had already spent lying side by side without touching. Instead of rushing towards release, they soaked in the aching pleasure of closeness long denied them both. And they both had baggage that had to be treated with care. Elizabeth had never seen Jack blush before in her life, but when she began exploring the scars littered across his chest and back, he became uncomfortable.

"I'm sorry, it's not exactly a pretty picture," he murmured in his rough voice. Elizabeth pulled his face close and kissed both eyes, her heart breaking for Jack's shame. He had once been so proud of his scars and the stories that went with them. Now he guarded his past and would have erased the evidence of it from his skin. Did he recall how frightened she had been the first time she saw them, and become worried they might unsettle her now, after all that had happened? She wasn't that sheltered girl anymore; she had watched her husband die once, killed men herself. She knew the fragility of the human body well.

"You're beautiful to me, Jack." _Almost unbearably beautiful._ "Your body shows that you've lived life—really lived it, in ways most people will never understand."

"You understand, though," Jack laughed softly. "That's why I never could resist you."

* * *

_Angéle stood alone, leaning against the stern's rail, her toes curled into the wire mesh beneath it. Jack was watching her: her profile, her short black hair, the way her skin swirled like an hourglass. He was so afraid to touch her. _

"_Why didn't you just leave me?" Her voice was hoarse, the sweet purity tainted by smoke and shouting. But she was still so unusual, so alluring. The life she had been living didn't show on her, not as much as it ought to. Jack could almost pretend the years hadn't happened, the years in which he had forgotten Angéle in the eyes of Elizabeth Swann and her ever-mounting adventures. These years had been filled with exploits and adventures, they had made a man out of the nimble thief of a child he had been when he first knew Angéle._

"_I'm sorry I ever let you go in the first place." But he wasn't, not really. If she hadn't gone, he would never have met Elizabeth. "I'm sorry you had to suffer." _

_Angéle jerked her head into a stony gaze. _

"_Did you suffer greatly?" he asked achingly, not wanting to hear. Not wanting to know what they had done to her there, not wanting to become familiar with New Angéle, the Angéle who was a woman and no longer his childhood playmate, the one who had taught him everything about piracy and thievery. If her father only knew. She was licking her lips, eyeing him as he ached. Why in God's name hadn't he left her there, enslaved once again? Because he loved her? Still? It didn't matter. They were both ruined now._

"_What does it mean to suffer greatly?" she asked with a weariness suited to an old, shriveled woman. She broke her bottle of secrets against Jack; her bottle that had once seemed so epic. It was only cheap liquor after all, the kind that could be found on any street corner. "Do you mean, did it hurt when they hit me, when they passed me around, when they entered me? Did it hurt when they took me to their inns and put their cigars out in me? When they scorned me and made me worthless? When I knew I was never going to get out? Oh God, if that's what you mean, I suffered. I died a thousand times, a thousand nights, and every death was for you. It wasn't right that I lived, that I kept breathing, that my body could continue when my spirit had been murdered. But then, I murdered it. I did it myself, not because of my suffering, but because I watched the other girls come in, and they didn't have you to dream of at night. All they had was the circus man to kill them when it became too much."_

"_What about Radha?" Jack remembered Savarna.  
_

"_Radha _was _the circus man."_

_A chill spread over both of them. All the great suffering he had done before was a joke now; now, he would really suffer, with those words in his brain, those words that already became images and scenes. An endless book of great and terrible suffering. Was it worse, would it be worse, than the suffering he had not experienced but merely observed? The old men droning in their mosques, already doing penance for those sins that would keep them from paradise? Young Elizabeth, even now learning to live without her new husband, learning to live with the curse? _

_Angéle was laughing. Her laughter had not changed, was not tainted, and it almost hurt it was so precious, so pure and untroubled. Magic. The one bit of magic he ever got to see. How could she be laughing now? Were they still children playing pretend, after all? _

_She put her black arms around him awkwardly, because he found he was crying. "Don't be afraid," she murmured. "Don't be afraid. It isn't really so dreadful, dear old Jack. I'll be good now, I'll make things better for you. Don't be afraid." _

_She was a survivor. He had misjudged her, all those years ago. He finally let his hands trace her face, pulling her closer. She was warm in his arms, unafraid. A storybook of redemption. Elizabeth had not taught him to love. She had taught him to ache for love, to pursue love, to want to know what love felt like. She had taught him to imagine his life yoked to another._

_But Angéle would be his wife, the mother of his child, the woman who had made those thoughts a reality. Watching Elizabeth walk away from him on the Black Pearl had left a raw place in his heart and confusion in his mind how any woman could have entrenched herself so deeply in his being. Up until then, physical pleasure and the gratification of his pride had been the main objects in his relationships. He wasn't a romantic; nor was he a cynic. Just a realistic man without any overblown ideals about life. Elizabeth ruined all that. Angéle would fix it._

* * *

Moulay Ismail stood in the shadows on the inn, his grand vizier at his right hand and a host of men scattered throughout the streets behind them. The sultan was eccentric, even according to the wealthy elite of the country; he never missed a chance to disguise himself and go among the people, especially where a criminal incident was concerned. Turning to his vizier, he spoke in English, an arrangement made to keep the common guards and soldiers from knowing their plans and motives. 

"You're sure this is the place?"

"Heard it straight from the lips of Azhar before he died. Shall we attack?"

"No," the Sultan's lips curled into a smile. "Why would we do such a thing? He is setting out to find the treasure we sought for years. If he is willing to undertake the dangers, perhaps by vigilance we shall reap the reward. Order his ship followed, and have reports sent to me. Understood?"

"Insha'allah," returned the vizier, hiding the roll of his eyes. _Brilliant but mad_, the soldiers said, and really, he agreed with them.

* * *

Morning came with a cool breeze off the ocean, and the faint blue lights of hillside residences spreading through the windows. Elizabeth was half between dreams when a knock at the door awoke her. She remembered clearly the events of the night before, the kisses, the whispered confessions and the slow fervent lovemaking, and then the hours afterward, sated in pleasure, relaxed in each other. How long had they laid awake talking, filling in the gap of years, trying to understand each other again? Elizabeth smiled languidly. It didn't matter. They didn't have to say goodbye now; they had all the time in the world before them for that journey. At the sound of the knock, Jack merely tightened his arms around her and buried his face into her neck, kissing her, pulling her into the curve of his body. 

"Tell them to go away," he said. "I want to stay here for a long while yet."

If the marks of passion on her skin hadn't convinced Elizabeth of the reality of last night, his voice did. She was surprised at how possessive she felt of him, and how protective. She wanted to watch him sleep again, to know he was at peace, to know she was the one who had given him peace. In all his anguish he was suddenly softer, more human. And he was hers. For how long, she didn't know, but the tightness of his embrace, the heat of his mouth on her neck and shoulders gave her a delicious feeling of arousal and assurance.

The knocking grew louder. Elizabeth groaned inwardly, and pulled out of Jack's grip. She reached to the floor and pulled Jack's tunic over her head.

When she swung open the door, she was met by the last person she could ever have imagined seeing. Turning white, she clutched the doorway to keep from collapsing, allowing her lips to form his name in a cracked whisper.

"William Turner…"

* * *

_The men of the Royal Navy ship the Good Fortune were nearly destroyed now; Jack's crew closed in around them, around the small band that was left, and they threw down their weapons and lifted their arms in surrender. How long had it been? Mahmoud couldn't tell; the battle had seemed swift and decisive, the aftermath particularly harsh. Jack appeared from somewhere in the darkness of morning, a sword in his hand. It took Mahmoud a few moments to realize it was all over, it had happened so quickly; still, a few men from their crew were dead, and death cannot be called quick. _

"_Stand back from them, all of you!" Jack cried in a loud voice as he stepped near. Obediently, the panting sailors moved away from the prisoners, who fell to their knees before him. _

"_Tie them up, and lock them in somewhere," Mahmoud said._

"_No!" Jack interrupted. "I will not have prisoners that may escape and bring further harm to people of the brand. The seas are infested with their kind already. They will die."_

"_Jack!" Mahmoud said low, "There is no cause for that. They have no weapons." The prisoners looked at them with wide eyes, with wide eyes staring out of bloodstained garments. A few were hardly old enough to be called men; all of them were afraid. Their captain was dead. He had been a good captain to them; he had known how to harness their fear. _

"_Mahmoud, this is my ship. Will you trust me to protect it?"_

"_Do as you will," Mahmoud said finally, turning his back to his captain. Jack looked at the prisoners for a moment, at their youth and fear, and then he looked at the crew still standing a few feet off, with swords in their hands. His chest was heaving with pain and something else, something too close to a need for vengeance. He didn't know himself and he didn't care. _

"_You have fought bravely," Jack said to his men, most of whom were strangers recently hired. "These men attacked us without reason and have caused havoc for our kind around the world. I charge you to kill them now." _

_The men stood still for a moment._

"_Kill them!" Jack cried darkly. His voice was powerful, for at once they sprang forward and bore down on the prisoners, who screamed for mercy. None was granted._

* * *

_Will!_ Elizabeth jerked awake, enveloped in a cold sweat. The dream had done its worst, she thought, feeling the unnatural rush of her heartbeat and most of all, sensing Jack stir painfully beside her. 

"Nightmares?" he asked softly, without opening his eyes. Elizabeth felt his arms tighten around her, as they had in the dream. With a flicker of a glance, he felt his way along her body, reveling in how it felt to know her, all of her. Even barely awake, she was hellishly beautiful, a balm for his soul, a covering of beauty over the disasters within him.

"I'm sorry I woke you," she whispered, smoothing the hair away from his lined face.

"Don't get up," he ordered when she tried to pull away. "Just let me hold you for a bit. Just let me hold you…" She couldn't refuse him, didn't want to refuse him, though there would a hundred good reasons why she should.

"I've made a number of wrong decisions lately," she muttered aloud, wondering why she felt strangely proud of her mistakes.

"Ah, it's too early to get into a discussion of right and wrong," Jack groaned, though Elizabeth thought with a smirk it was a little late. "Mahmoud says it's all a question of Jalal e-Din Rumi."

"Rumi?" She rolled over to face him. He was smiling; Elizabeth recognized a glimmer of gold near the back of his mouth, hints of earlier days. He brushed her face with the back of his hand, hesitating slightly. Dark circles dipped under her eyes, evidence of the nights she had spent awake, holding him as he fought off nightmares. She was pouring herself out over him like the water of life, unhesitant, completely surrendered. Right or wrong, she was saving him.

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field," Jack finally quoted with heavy meaning. "I will meet you there."

"An interesting philosophy," Elizabeth murmured. She tried to picture such a place; rather than a field, she instinctively envisioned an island.

* * *


	8. The Captain's Lover

**Ch 8. Well my dears, I'll be out of the country for 2 weeks, so no updates until I get back. I do hope you enjoy this chapter. The next is half-written but I don't think I'll finish it before I leave. Anyways, thanks a million for the wonderful reviews!**

* * *

Seventeen days had passed since they slipped out of Tangier and began the long voyage around the coast of Africa. The wind was with them, always with them, blowing Elizabeth's hair into her face as she walked the deck morning after morning. There had been seventeen morning afters. Irrevocably the nights ended; unaccountably, their ardor did not. The blaze that had begun as cautious as a refiner's fire was growing reckless, flagrant, inexorable.

She and Jack had made love what felt like a thousand times; invented a dozen new ways of pleasure, learned every curve and crevice of the other's body. Sometimes they were breathless youths, aggressive and fearless; other times they were the best of friends, mixing loving with endless conversation as their trust grew.

They were lovers, Elizabeth thought as she strode the deck that seventeenth morning. It was a word that still meant little to her; it was too narrow, too restrictive. He had become everything in her world: her lover, her brother, her father, her son, her friend. Merely whispering his name alone to the morning sky sent shivers down her back because Jack was eclipsing everything that had once been important to her soul. She was no closer to understanding his mysteries than she had once been; the deeper she delved into his sultry black eyes, the greater the caverns within them seemed to grow. But Elizabeth Turner never did things by halves.

Neither of them talked about the treasure anymore. It was a remote fantasy, and the thing that would eventually sever what they had begun and drive them apart. It was inevitable as the seasons, but thus far, too distant to trouble them. The word 'treasure' had become scalded and broken, a vague architecture of stillness over a linen sky still far away.

He was watching her. She could feel his long eyes across the deck. Now he was coming towards her, barefoot. She ran to him and met him halfway, preoccupied by the lines of his face, swept up in the scent he carried, anxious to know if he had slept. The crew had swiftly figured out that Elizabeth wasn't Jack's sister, to their credit. How many lies did Jack put on like a costume before them all, Elizabeth sometimes found herself wondering?

"A fine morning," Jack said, looking only at her. "We're getting very close to our next stop." Smoothly, he cupped her face in his slender brown hands—artist's hands, Elizabeth called them—and moved his lips across her face. She bathed in rosewater now; she smelled like peace.

"Good morning to you too," she laughed lightly, pulling away before they did something unseemly. How Mahmoud scowled at them, always kissing and petting each other, too caught up in their desire to be discreet. Even Pusti would blush and turn away. They might be ridiculous, but neither cared. By the straight line of his shoulders Elizabeth discerned that he had slept deeply. "What land is this?"

"The Lion Mountains. The Italians call it Sierra Leone," Jack replied, pulling his eyes off her to focus in on the jutting green coast.

"You've been here before, then?"

"Didn't I tell you I'd been everywhere, seen everything?" At Elizabeth's indulgent nod of assent, he turned back towards the coast. "I know these hills well. We're making for an island."

_The island beyond wrongdoing and rightdoing_, Elizabeth immediately thought, and then laughed at herself. It had become easier to laugh in the past seventeen days. They had made the _White Araby_ their island.

"Bartholomew Roberts and I came here a few years ago," Jack continued, though she hadn't asked. "Got into some trouble, I can tell you. Always trouble when you're on the red earth."

He still was chasing the horizon. Through the window or past the deck, his eyes sought it restlessly. Nearer to the equator the sun had become the star that guided them, and Elizabeth recalled the steady warmth of the Caribbean sky in years past. She thought of her first sunset over Port Royal, the heat on her carved marble skin, the delirious sparks hovering around her eyelids, the gentle warm breath on her head. She smelled the sweet, strong, golden smell of the dawn, with its worshipful demands, with its quiet solace. She imagined the relentless heat of summer, the hell of close-air and damp, slow baking under the futile shadows. She saw again the sun rippling, white and pale, through the tree limbs of a scented orchard. In the light Jack seemed to darken and draw into himself, shading her, cooling her fiery spirit. The rays that absorbed into her skin and danced in gold flecks through her eyes drew close but did not touch him, as Elizabeth so often did.

She toyed with a strand of Jack's thick hair, thinking that she wanted to braid it all. Perhaps she would. She could do what she liked with him, most of the time. She leaned up to kiss his neck, running her hands down his body, touching all the right places.

"Are you going to have me right here?" he asked with mild amusement.

"I'm thinking about it," was her response. "I'm also thinking Mahmoud would throw us overboard."

He tipped her chin and met her mouth, hard. "I'm Captain. I'll do as I please on my own ship."

"Well, I'm the Captain's Lover," Elizabeth said, gasping as he forced her back against the rail, hips pressed against hers. "And I'll return to our cabin before you lay a hand on me. Please remember that I'm a lady, and therefore require some modesty."

"Yes, indeed!" Jack laughed suddenly, recalling her in various indecent postures. She had said "_our cabin_". "Get inside, then, _habibti_. I'll be along."

* * *

The Royal African Company of England operated the slave castle on Bunce Island 20 miles inland on the Sierra Leone River. Lord Cutler Beckett, before he became a Lord, had once had a hand in the running of the castle, and it was from whence he had once sent an idealistic young merchant with a cargo of 100 slaves, nigh on fifteen years ago. The slaves had been captives from the tribal wars, and were bound for the Caribbean. To the Caribbean they came, but not as slaves. And the young merchant found himself unexpectedly branded and out of a job. Nothing to live for, as he said: the perfect beginnings of a life of piracy.

He had been back in times since, but Jack was always surprised at the rush of feelings the place invoked. The scent of rich damp earth, the salt from the river, and the primal heat of Africa blended together in an overpowering blast of memories… a smile came to his lips without cause, a smile that was fresh and youthful and impossibly idealistic. Through his cabin window, Jack could see that the castle had fallen into some disrepair, but the rock of the walls retained their mournful personality even when hidden by the creeping undergrowth of the vengeful jungle. The echoing cries of the captives within caused Elizabeth to shudder beside him, and Jack pulled her closer into his embrace. How different his memories became when he had her beside him. They lost the sharp tooth of despair and became wounds worth forgetting.

"Why are we here, Jack?" Elizabeth was naked in his arms, gazing out the window at the island in the estuary. They were weighing anchor.

"Enjoy the journey," Jack said, voicing that Eastern thinking that had slipped into his persona. He so seldom explained things. To her surprise he reached into one of his boots that lay on the floor beside them, and drew out a little piece of silk, painted all over in strange letters. He spread it before her. "Not quite a map, but close. 'The journey to gaining your heart's desire is not a single location, but a succession of experiences you must have. Only then will the path reveal itself to you.'"

"How mysterious," Elizabeth remarked sardonically. Somehow, speaking of the treasure filled her with confusion and fear. "I suppose you've already checked several experiences off the list?"

Jack raised his eyebrows. "Haven't you guessed that by now? Why do you think I came to London for you?"

Elizabeth met his eyes, understanding. "What were the instructions?"

"To find someone who had once betrayed you, and render them a service. The Gurkha of the Kathmandu Valley believe only by helping an enemy will you learn to forgive them."

"Was I an enemy, Jack?"

"A strange enemy, to be sure," Jack said, tilting his head at her. "The most tempting enemy I've ever had."

She blinked a few times, remembering the moment she had heard the metal click around his wrist years ago. But it was remote as a dream now; she couldn't quite believe it had happened. Even then, her soul had clung to the mast with him. Jack saw her troubled gaze and took her hand, tracing the lines of writing for her.

"You see, each directive is written in a different tongue. Hence, my guests." He gazed at the 'map' for a moment longer, his mind working out the directives he had. He really was remarkably clever, Elizabeth thought, watching him. It took a brilliant man to decipher such long-hidden secrets. "Aye," he muttered, "Andalusia took care of that one."

"What were the orders that led you to Tangier?"

"To return to a place that once signified new life to you, and await an experience that would bring new life again."

"Was it what you expected?" Elizabeth somewhat doubted it.

He was shaking his head slowly. "You were forbidden—always have been. I think…" he hesitated, looking back towards the window. "I owe your… I've always thought that…" he didn't finish. Elizabeth wouldn't press the matter, though her curiosity was aroused. The enigmatic darkness spreading over his eyes made her shiver. She had taken a dangerous man for her lover; he roused the dusk in her soul like a disease.

"Jack, look at me, and stop thinking about the past. What have we come here to the Lion's Mountains for?" She was relieved and delighted to see the mischievous smile that came to his face.

"I'm to think of the most selfless thing I ever did, and repeat the action."

"And what is the most selfless thing you ever did?" she wondered, thinking if she had to guess, she would have said Jack saving her fiancé's life before. But Jack had other things on his mind.

"We'll need the help of the crew for this one. It's a bit more dangerous than the others, but obviously worth it. It's a good thing Pusti is with us." Jack finally noticed her questioning face. With his eyes he indicated the slave castle only a few hundred yards away. "We're going to have a jail-break."

* * *

Pusti swatted aside the dripping vines and laden grasses, bearing in mind her orders to go down, and keep going down. Her senses swam with vague confusion, for the land around the river did not slope but ripple in endless little hills. Pusti thought back on the city of her birth, which was tricky to picture because it seemed faraway and stiff, without breath, without life. Once, a long time ago, she had been engaged to be married to one of her father's apprentices. Why hadn't she married him? Oh yes… he had left the city. She told him that she would not marry him until she learned how to be alone, for in that time she had many friends. She was afraid of him, in a way, and afraid of altering her life for him. Yet he had such merry eyes… such tender, broad hands that were protective of her, not ravenous with her body but gentle, careful. She told him to go away and leave her, and if she did not come to him within a day or two her answer was no. He left the city the next morning, and they found him dead on the road weeks later, dead of exposure, they said, dead of the weather. Pusti actually laughed when they told her, and then she said nothing and did nothing for a year. She went out and slept on the road that led away from the city and was cold, and wet, blistered by the sun and then racked by the pain of aloneness, and for a year she ate nothing but what she found near the road, but she did not die. That was how she knew he had killed himself, and they had lied to her. But that was a long time ago.

All at once Pusti broke through a curtain of tangled vines and found herself on a grassy surface, slightly damp with rich red soil near to the strong roots and a taste so forcible it rendered Pusti immobile for a time. A full moon sailed overhead, too near to the earth for comfort, too large for dismissal. A few feeble rays of the sun fell around, fast shrinking in the budding shadows and behind the growing clouds. Before her pitched the land on all sides downward, smoothly, to a rounded hollow before the river, and beyond the river, the island. With a gasp Pusti forced herself up and leaned against the safety of the known behind her. Now it backed away, cautiously, aware of the river, aware of the smell of life in Pusti, and assailed by memory. Swiftly Pusti forced her eyes around the edge of the island, intent for any sign of the Viscount. No movement, no hiding figure in the shade. Not yet.

* * *

Jack and Elizabeth were both manning long boats. The _White Araby_ was anchored out of sight; after Mahmoud had replenished their supplies, they thought it best to be forgotten. Rowing quickly through the greasy black water, thick with silt, Jack watched Elizabeth's profile in the moonlight, thinking the one downside to having her near was that he couldn't concentrate on a task for the life of him.

"_Your hair is a tapestry; the king is held captive in its tresses."_ Jack remembered reading these words in a text of religious importance at some point in his life, and gave meaning to them when he explored the shadows of Elizabeth near-hip length brown hair, smooth as sandalwood and darker than he remembered, for years without sunlight in England. He loved to watch her wash it, comb it, weave it into delicate braids that she piled onto her head; he would wait his moment to loose the braids in spite of her half-hearted complaints. Playing Viscount, as he had for years, gave him some experience with the way women looked after themselves, and the great effort they take to be beautiful, but he was still intrigued by everything Elizabeth did.

They were fighting the current, and nearing land. The river teemed with life, noisy and unsettling, from the deafening chirp of cicadas to the stealthy movements of animals making their way to the water to drink. Tsetse flies buzzed around thickly, and the odd macaw croaked warning to the travelers in their little boats.

Torches had been lit on the island, their smoke driving away some of the bugs. It was a tiny place, and Elizabeth thought with some relief, hardly capable of holding more than thirty or forty men at arms. The men there were alert, though, and mindful of their surroundings in the husky, stale blackness of callow evening. They leaned against the partition, sweating despite the chill, the air vapid and faintly tinged with smoke from the cook-fires, waiting for the Lord to let them off duty. Elizabeth tightened the belt around her waist, on which hung a sword Jack had given her, and the pistol she had requested as well. She, for one, had no romantic illusions about the honor of weaponry. In a crisis, she trusted her shooting skills above her skill with a sword.

They could see Pusti on the shoreline, peering through the branches of a huge banyan tree. Jack gave her a little wave as he and Elizabeth pulled their boats alongside the rocky shoreline; Mahmoud, Narsimha, Hayot, and Boswell crouched in the thick foliage on the other side of the river, ready to strike back to the White Araby when (and if) they managed to get the captives outside. Positions were reached. Pusti was signaled.

Elizabeth had wondered why Jack chose Pusti to be the diversion for their hastily-put-together mission, but as soon as Pusti began screaming, she understood. Pusti could wake the dead with that voice, as she leaped into the river and began splashing around. Elizabeth covered her ears with her hands, giving Jack an incredulous look. "God in Heaven," she mouthed, "You weren't fooling me!" The thick purple twilight was shattered; Elizabeth's heart was clunking audibly in her chest. A rush of adrenaline brought a giddy smile to her face, but she still remembered Jack's earlier words, words that had frightened her to her core: "_Sometimes you lose your life on the journey to your heart's desire…" _

As hoped, the guards of the castle, along with a good many of the men inside, came pouring out with their torches and weapons drawn. As predicted, they could not resist playing hero to the damsel in distress. At least twenty of them plunged into the water towards Pusti, and the rest watched with avid interest. Jack and Elizabeth met eyes: so far, so good. They moved toward the gate, and slipped inside without incident. These men clearly did not expect anyone to trouble them; inside was a barren yard somewhat littered with rubbish and waste. A foul smell emitted from the holds below. Jack reached in the dark and clasped Elizabeth's hand in his.

In the shadow of a doorway, he suddenly pulled her close and kissed her fiercely; he didn't release her until she was trembling and pliant in his arms. "Adventures become harder when you have something worth living for," he murmured into her hair, and Elizabeth could only nod. She was always surprised at his honesty, always surprised at the beauty of his shadowed face, always surprised at the agility of his movements, always surprised at _him_. And she realized with a start that she didn't want to lose him, that her redemption was somehow contained in him. He had covered himself in rich garments, in clean lines and thoughtful moods; she had tempered herself and been steady. It was uncanny, how the changes both might have lamented actually catalyzed the release of years' worth of passion.

"Did you desire me before, Jack?" she whispered, knowing now wasn't the best time for conversation.

"Well, yes," he answered, surprised. His pistol found its way into his hand and he glanced around warily before continuing. "Always. But perhaps not in the way I do now. You were an idol of sorts, I suppose. I saw myself in you… wanted to protect you from becoming someone you couldn't live with. A clumsy effort I made of it, though." And a gleam came into his eyes, the gleam she had seen when he had sent her into her new husband's arms. "I wasn't as foolish as you may have thought. I had nothing to offer you but longings. No future, no staying power. The man I was then would have broken your heart, had you been foolish enough to run after him." He curled his lip. "Fortunately, you had a good head on your shoulders."

"Aye," Elizabeth sighed. "But a terrible ending for us all, despite our best efforts."

"It wasn't the end," he said, leading her softly down the stairs, beneath a dripping ceiling of overgrown rock. Their senses were beginning to be overwhelmed by the smells and the cries ahead. How in God's name did anyone live on this island and retain sanity? "Think. If everything had worked out as we both wanted, we wouldn't be here to wreak havoc on the King's little enterprise. Am I right?"

"You're right a good portion of the time," she replied, tightening her grip on his slim hand. Voices ahead, speaking English. Guards. Elizabeth swallowed and leaned forward to breathe in Jack's ear, "What happens if we fail?" He met her eyes; his were blazing black, his face masking well whatever he felt. His answer was calm and matter of fact and cut Elizabeth to the quick.

"Then I take the bullet and you get back on the _White Araby_ and sail off to the horizon. Savvy?"


	9. Salt Water

**Ch. 9 **

**I am very sorry it has taken me so long to get this chapter up. That's life I suppose. I am incredibly insecure about this chapter and happy to be done with it and move on to the next bit of the story. Thanks for putting up with me. And thank you immensely for all the reviews-- you are all so lovely. **

* * *

_Fire in the corridor, shouting, black faces, black eyes, black like Jack's; strange language tumbling around her, song-like, the language of the jungle and the Lion's Mountains… Gunshots overhead, Pusti giving the signal, Mahmoud cursing from a distance, frantic. Jack is slow, he won't leave until they all are out, the door is open a mere crack, smoke is filling the room. Savvy, he said, something about the horizon. She doesn't remember now, she feels the skin of her arm break open and the soldiers are suddenly inside, everything going horribly wrong, Jack smiling as he cuts them down one by one. And she finds her sword is flashing too—she finds she is killing with delight, some demon taking hold of her hand and drawing it across soft pink English flesh in the narrow hall. They are out, they are out, Jack is pulling her along, she is yelling curses behind them. Black faces in the water, running faster than she can, swimming the river toward the Araby as though born in the water. Jack is pulling her into a longboat, pressing her against the bottom, her face is splintered and an inch deep in silted water. She cannot breathe, he doesn't release her, she thinks she will die at his hand and her mind is going blank when everything explodes around her and she sees Jack's dangerous smile against the orange glow of canon fire._

* * *

Salt water swirled fast around Elizabeth, her mouth full of it, her eyes burned by it. The jagged knife wounds down one arm suddenly came to life with roaring pain and she wanted to scream, but she couldn't, couldn't breath, couldn't think. It was not so much that she moved forward but that she _became_ the water in front of her, inhabited the waves crashing before her, grew, converted into the space ahead of her body. She did not see because she did not need to, or indeed feel or smell; all was in her mind, all imprinted onto her in every pore. She was the ocean.

The waves were calling to her, _hello, welcome back, where have you been, dearly loved, dearly departed?_

She ought to be laughing. They were away, all the captives sailing free on the White Araby, all the furious soldiers still cursing and bleeding behind them. It was only the canons that had finally interrupted Jack's plan; newly built canons, they must be, for they reached them when they thought they were far out of range.

Elizabeth broke through the surface all at once, gasping and spluttering, with a strange thought that Jack had almost killed her. The river was behind; ahead, the horizon. The Lion's Mountains were a void against the velvet sky, and the White Araby was nowhere in sight. But in the moment, she hardly noticed. Adventure, pure and unbridled, was rushing through her veins. The thrill of near-death, the glorious high of risk and cleverness paying off. She was happy—god, how happy! It was almost ridiculous.

How many years had it been since she fell into the ocean, swam in it, been battered by its waves? Too long…

"Elizabeth!" Jack was beside her, a toppled longboat floating in pieces, destroyed by the canons still sounding from the river. And she saw the same giddiness in his own face. They were such fools! She splashed towards him, scarcely able to keep her head above water, which was oily black. "Stop laughing for god's sake and breathe." He trembled before her, with zeal, with undulating revulsion and uneasiness, and something else, something apart from his frenzied memories that she could, in no way, understand.

Elizabeth was almost dizzy with pleasure. "We succeeded!"

"Yes," Jack replied with heavy irony, his limbs already weakening as he kept his head above water. "And soon we'll get to share the story with your dear husband." There was a strange, faraway look in his eyes, nearly hidden by the night.

"Come on, Jack, don't be daft. The ship can't be far." With a sudden jolt, her feet landed on a sandbar just four feet below the water. Her laughter broke forth again as she stood on it. "You see? We're not fated to drown… not yet, anyway."

"It might be better for us both if we did," Jack said with his usual sardonic smile, but he made his way over to her. Faint starlight scattered down across their faces, and Elizabeth pulled close to him, shivering.

"Don't say things like that," she murmured. "Would you be rid of me so easily?"

He ignored her statement, seeing the deep gashes along her forearm. "That's unfortunate. Does it hurt at all?" He was already ripping a square of fabric from his tunic to bind it up.

"Hurts like hell, but it doesn't matter. Don't fuss over me."

"I'm not fussing over you. I'm thinking about sharks. They can smell blood miles away."

She looked up in surprise, but he merely smirked at her. "Jack Sparrow… if you weren't so unsafe, I'd slap you."

"I dare you to," he replied, pulling her close with the possessive strength she couldn't resist.

_I love you,_ Elizabeth almost whispered, but she stopped herself. She didn't believe in love anymore… why tempt fate with those words? Why commit to something she couldn't see through? Why go down that terrible road again?

He was shaking, Elizabeth noticed, holding onto her so tightly she could barely breathe. Was he afraid? What had happened to make him suddenly so searing and close, so vulnerable? It was almost as though he were trying to force the confession she had stopped herself from making. Did he know? Was he holding himself back from saying the same thing? Or was she merely a passing pleasure as he sought to heal his troubled soul? She shivered in his arms and thought, _it doesn't matter. It simply doesn't matter._ And really, when she remembered the treasure they were seeking and what it would mean, nothing mattered.

* * *

_Elizabeth's eyes strayed across him hungrily, but Jack showed no sign of remembering her, of acknowledging her. He was still lost to her, though they were rescued from the locker, though they were facing another more horrible death in a few hours when they would lead the pirates in a last stand against Cutler Beckett and his navy. _

"_One last parley," Jack said finally._

"_I know."_

"_You're coming, then?"_

"_I'm the bloody king." _

"_Ah," Jack said, meeting her eyes and tweaking her nose the way one would a child. He was patronizing her, but she was so relieved she didn't care. "I beg to differ, love. You're a sweet little girl pretending to be king. But when you wake up to tragedy instead a warm nursery, what will you do?" _

"_I'll grow up," she replied, with a faint smile. As you did. _

"_Don't do that," he said with a frown, tipping her chin so that her face caught the light. He wasn't so afraid of her now, now that he had seen her wandering pale and distraught along the docks. She was too young to see things end this way, locked into promises that were debts, debts that must be honored. _

_She pressed his hand lightly. "I'm glad you're here, Jack."_

"_So am I," he said with a swift grin. "Nothing like imminently violent death to make you wish it always came in the form of a pretty lass." With that, he ducked away and back towards the Pearl, and she stood for a moment watching the silk of the pirate flags flutter in the cold wind; she would go to her doom with no understanding to ease the parting, for Jack had forgotten compassion. A little thing, compassion. A thing Elizabeth needed now. She needed clarity, not this rigid black sky brooding above her, not his scent still seeping through her skin, not Jack pretending and forgetting and using, as always, oh heaven, not Jack! Her thoughts were all disturbed by him. That was where his chief power lay, she thought. In causing disturbances, in causing strife, both within and without, so that all in all, there was so much emotion, so much battle and passion tied to him, he could in no way be glossed over or forgotten. He was always rising, rising to some peak, rising in her heart, rising towards something she didn't quite see. Would he ever get there? And if he got there, would he be too far gone for her to see?_

* * *

Jack had always imagined that he would understand happiness if ever he won for himself that fiery, shameless child-woman that fell from the sky and was nearly naked in his arms a moment later, looking up at him with honest curiosity and some intemperate heathen desire—not the kind of desire he was used to in women, desire that made them breathy and giddy and clinging—but a desire that he soon found was unique to Elizabeth alone. It was as though she were sizing him up, measuring his strength to take her on in a dual, calculating whether he were man enough to bear her drenched, pulsing skin against his in battle. And always he had felt that peculiar, forthright question in her gaze and her teasing touch: if given the chance, would he fall into her spell or be able to meet her as an equal?

Before, he would have undoubtedly fallen into her spell. Her kiss at the mast had been a test— would he be noble and gallant, allow her to win? Or would he fight her fairly and beat her, as they both knew he ought? He had failed, utterly. Damn the good man inside him, damn the innocence she awoke in him, damn the tremulous fluttering hope that had perched on his heart for that brief moment. Damn it all. She was not sorry for her own actions—but sorry for _his_, for the way he let her walk away. It hadn't taken Jack long to realize this, but either way, it had been too late. He suffered his own punishment in the locker, knowing he could have had her, knowing she had given him the choice fair and square.

He remembered the look in Will's eyes when he first learned what Elizabeth had done—shock, anger, even fear. Jack had laughed to see it. While the rest of them viewed Elizabeth as a treacherous harlot who dared to kill their Captain, he understood the whole situation had been his own doing, his own failure, his own choice. Elizabeth didn't want to kill him—she wanted him to prove to her that he was up to the challenge of being her partner, her lover, her soul-mate. So she wept in Tia Dalma's hut, not because Jack was dead, but because Jack was like every other man she had met… and she had held out such hope for him! He was like Will, like James, like all the others. Eager to be her slave, ready to die for her. It was awful.

Jack was tortured for a while by what could have been. He imagined as Elizabeth stepped near to kiss him—her mouth parted, her damp hair fluttering around her face, her sun-burned skin just the shade of apricots—he would draw his weapon on her, hold it to her heart. Or perhaps he would let her kiss him, perhaps he would enjoy the taste of her mouth, even the heaviness of her body as she thrust against him at the mast, before he suddenly seized her throat with a wry look that showed her he knew what she was up to—knew, and wouldn't allow it. And then he would march her to the rail, shove her down the ladder, into the longboat. He would climb in, they would row to the shoals. Whether they made it there alive or not wouldn't matter. There would be a look of shock and silence on her face, and then gradually, a glimmer in her hooded eyes that meant he had succeeded—she was sure, now, that he could understand her, that he was worthy to enter her world, her body. She was sure that he could be more than a lovesick boy, more than a lustful friend. Sure that he could survive _her_.

Yes, he had failed before. But things were different now, he was different. Her provocative, gamin's body had softened; the magnetic question in her eyes became the look of a willful child, having her way. He had proven himself at long last, abandoning her all those years, and then offering her freedom without a trace of desire, without a backward glance to see if she would follow. She had followed; inexplicably, he had succeeded. Now he had her—now he had her, and his happiness wasn't complete. It teetered precariously over nightmares and inevitable comings. It was poised, every moment, for flight. He saw their brief happiness slipping through their fingers even as he buried his face in her hair, replete with breathless knowing, owning her, body and soul. He was going to lose her. Not because she would leave him, but because he would give her away.

It came to it at last: he was indebted to Will, indebted with his life. And it wasn't until he felt the salt water of the Atlantic coursing over his tired limbs that he realized it. The last time he had fallen headfirst into deep water, he had been riddled with bullets, shattered, dead. And then, taken from the water alive. It had been Will's doing. The Captain of the Flying Dutchman, in whom Jack and Elizabeth barely believed any longer, had touched Jack's torn body and healed it, sent him from the water back to the land, brought him from death to life. Jack could remember it suddenly, and the memory was clear and painful as birth.

Jack had to find the treasure now. He had to, for Elizabeth, so that she would rescue Will from his curse and be his wife, bear him children, grow old with him and make him human again. He owed Will that, and he understood it clear as the moon above he and Elizabeth as they embraced on the sandbar. That was Will's price.

* * *

_It was late. Late for Angéle, because she was a morning person. Tonight the moon was bewitching and very new- Jack had never seen a moon quite like that one before._

_They were walking home with banter back and forth, and ended up in a dark corner with Rum. He doubted her sincerity, but they were both thrill seekers. They both progressed quickly, amongst caravan dreams and an insatiable craving for the God of the mystery. (God was light and truth, and yet also mystery. In Angéle's language mystery carried connotations of darkness and almost, an evil sense. But in Jack's mind, God was mysterious in the most beautiful and terrible way.) And the word became seductive. They rolled back and forth, eager and direct, anxious to spill all the treasures he'd gathered from their pirate escapades around the world, the treasures that became questions, the questions that became song, the songs that became a sudden need for something real._

_They ran to escape the place that defined reality. They were breathing hard and his skin was dark like morning coffee that starts out a wild day, and she wanted to taste it._

_They were laughing, because they were ridiculous in a way that could verge on profound and insane. They journeyed into the insanity and all this was redeemed by the golden violin symphony of 1 AM along a dark island road. The sugar fields stretched out forever before them and the sky on the horizon was pink, as though the sun reached a point and refused to set. Their eyes flashed and they declared that time would stand still for them._

_They climbed over the fence, laughing, daring to be caught, daring to fall. A slim line of jagged scrapes showed across her arm, and she was delighted by them. Spider trees waved and whispered behind them, were they defiant, or desperate? What stories had they left on the dark road, what histories or imaginings?_

_They waded into the mud, and her brown palm sandals groaned to be pulled away. They were children again, leaning on one another, catching a glimpse of the water, aware of a moment of decision. All hung in the balance, and the night caught its breath, because so often had they wandered away at this point; so often had the travelers journeyed on and left it undisturbed. But these two were not afraid, in the infernal heat of the moment, in the expression of all the wildness inside them. If only the world could see them now, thank God the world couldn't see them now!_

_They lay in the water, in the mermaid reeds, and time stood still. The slow current carried away a remnant of the control they longed to abandon. Free falling, steady through the air, deliciously cold in the water, so close they were almost the same person. She looked at the stars; she was reduced to an essence, perhaps the purest form of art, and his arms were the truth._

_She broke the moment, and the bond strengthened. It would stay in this night, until one day they wrote their memoirs, she joked. They shivered, perhaps they were cold, certainly they were giddy. They stood on the road and waited, they walked in the field and listened. An owl interrupted their infrequent voices, and they drifted apart, preparing to re-enter reality._

* * *

There was a ship approaching, and Jack knew from the way it churned the water it couldn't be the Araby. Instinctively, he sank to his knees in the water and pulled Elizabeth against him, held her still.

"Who is it?" she questioned, low. Jack could hear the tension in her voice—she was craving more, she was hoping it was an enemy, hoping they would have to fight. He could feel her gathering energy, her readiness to spring into action. He found it obscenely erotic.

"We're being followed," he whispered into her ear, hands roving under her mermaid-garments in the water. "Have been ever since Tangier."

"Followed? Why haven't we turned and given them fight?" she asked, her voice louder than she intended.

"Don't be absurd," Jack chuckled, cooling as she burst out of his arms. "Hardly the gentlemanly thing to do, in such a case."

"Gentlemanly?" Elizabeth was incredulous.

"Indeed. The Sultan is a very dear enemy of mine. I'd hate to provoke him by noticing his little plan."

"Jack," Elizabeth pursed her lips in profound annoyance, "I swear there are moments I could kill you."

"Aye, I have similar moments myself." Moments where he could kill _her_ for her unstoppable enthusiasm for life. All he wanted was to disappear to an island with her, forget life, forget it all. All he wanted was her. Adventure was stale on his tongue, freedom rife with hidden costs. But still she chased it. And so did he, in his own way, more out of habit than desire. She struck him too, all the hoarfrost that had gathered in him, all the icebound caverns and corners of insensate daze. She reached him as no one else could reach him, for she _was_ him and all of him and in every manner his reverse, his negation.

"Does life mean nothing to you?" she asked, always understanding him better than he'd like. So impractical, always barnacled truths and effervescent musings of genius, always unstoppable pressure against him, fighting him and becoming him at the same time. Like crumpled paper or scattered roses, the old arguments were too dull to endure, too base for their clarity, their infatuation. Too many words, always too many words. Nothing was as it should be.

"If I gave you away, what would you do?" he asked to punish her, his eyes fixed on the ship sailing past several hundred yards away.

"I'd find my way back to you," Elizabeth said simply. Her honesty pierced Jack's heart; this is what he had feared and tried so desperately to avoid with her. And all of a sudden, their talk had become too serious. Jack laughed because there was nothing else to do, no other way to take back the words they had both spoken. Pirate or King, the only way he could win with her was by remaining a mystery. So he cloaked his face and laughed again. He was going to lose her. He was going to give her up.

"Mahmoud will circle back, later. I gave him orders to release the captives first."

"Where will they go?" she asked, and he was unreasonably angry with her for not understanding the sacrifice he would make. He would have to learn to dissemble now.

"Back to their homes," he replied. "The English presence is waning. They will learn to unite and survive, or they will fall again. I will not be their savior forever."

_But will you be mine?_ Elizabeth wondered, still intrigued by his face, his endlessly shadowed face. She had thought him riffraff once, even said so perhaps. And now she was the beggar at his door, needing him. She closed her eyes as a slow hot breeze drifted over both of them, wet and laden with the scent of fir off the mountains. _I'm so happy,_ Elizabeth was thinking, lost in Jack's arms again, surrounded by the ocean. _So unreasonably happy…_ It was dangerous, really, to be so happy. It was almost daring fate to take it away from you.


	10. No Past, No Future

**Ch. 10. **

Thank you so much for the reviews!

* * *

If they had no past, no future, if they only had now, would she behave differently? Waiting for the _White Araby_ to return in the hazy dawn, nothing before them but the gold water of a new day, would she be able to love him more fully than she did now?

"You're making me nervous," he finally said; she was staring at him. The colors flushed her marble face and weariness made the moment feel dreamlike. He closed his eyes. Maybe nightmares would begin haunting his days as well. Maybe that was what would finally steal back the immortality he had won for himself—insomnia.

"Jack," her voice was soft, tired, sweet. "You almost killed me in the water before. Did you know? You were holding my face down and I couldn't breathe." She looked concerned for _him_, of all things. Tender as a mother. He turned away and didn't look at her.

"I know."

That was all he said. She tilted her head sideways, the faint smile still at her mouth. And then suddenly she was beside him in the water, kissing him passionately, digging her nails into his skin, pulling him against her. She knew. How? How could she have known that he was trying to get back at her, trying to make her understand how it felt when she took him in her arms? How it felt when she pleasured him and exhausted him, and he could never resist, never keep his head above the surface? She knew, and she easily had her way again. God, she was beautiful. Skin shriveled from the water, hair damp and salty, face white with weariness. He had known so many beautiful women but she was unique, uniquely full of life.

"Don't ever do that again," she panted, helping him undo the clasps of her robe. "Don't ever!"

"I swear I won't," he murmured, as her legs curled around his waist. What he had meant to say was, "I'm sorry."

Half underwater their bodies melted together, Jack held her face in his strong hands and kissed her until she thought she would suffocate with pleasure. It was so strange to have a lover, Elizabeth thought, to belong to him, after so many years of burying her desire. So strange that she knew well how to arouse him, where he was sensitive. And so strange that for all their intimacy, she still knew so little of his mind. Sharing a bed did not automatically make them understand each other, Elizabeth had discovered in surprise soon after their first night. Sometimes she knew she was making love to an ideal: the warm, teasing friend of her past, rather than the shadowy and troubled man before her. But then, she knew in some ways, he was sating himself in the defiant girl she had been before, too. What a slow journey they were on! Little by little, step by step he opened up to her. It would take a lifetime, at this rate, before she would truly know him.

* * *

_Jack had seen the N'golo, Dance of the Zebra, in Luanda years earlier, but here in the Bay of All Saints it was called Capoeira, and far more interesting. The back alley was littered with refuse and glass; the breeze smelled like peace. Ahead of him was a makeshift roda, formed mostly by the many-colored faces of the guitar players, flutists, and drummers. Old Mimi, her long gray hair glimmering in the moonlight, led out a too-swift island melody and eyed the crowd with almost suspicious intensity; Jack knew she was on the prowl for a lover. Respected (and more importantly, obeyed) by all three of the local gangs, she never failed to bed the winner of the Capoeira. They were mostly slaves, still, but here in a back alley of Salvador they formed their own kingdom. They had their own climate, their own seasons; sometimes their fights were intricate dances, almost a mating ritual as they traded women and old bits of language they were all losing. Sometimes their fights exploded into a storm of pride, and they would plan their way out of slavery, form alliances, make pledges. But most of them would die with the brand still on their chest. Like Angéle would, perhaps, waiting for him in Port Majestic. Jack hated the sight of the brand. _

"_Boa Noite," someone remarked in his direction, and Jack turned around the see a man who reminded him, oddly, of Koehler. He hadn't thought of any of his former crew in years and was somewhat unsettled by the recollection. _

"_Tudo Vem?" Jack asked brusquely, hiding his face behind a cuia of mate. _

"_Bem, obrigado. English?" asked the man, unexpectedly. Jack nodded. "You are Jack Sparrow, yes?"_

"_It's quite possible," Jack returned nonchalantly, sipping his drink, which was still too hot. "And you are…?"_

"_An admirer," said the man with a broad smile. "But first and foremost a messenger." He leaned in closer. "You know someone named Elizabeth?"_

_Jack set down his cuia and lit up a thin cigar, urgently drawing the smoke into his lungs. "At one time I did, yes." _

"_Pirate King, she calls herself, or some such nonsense. Known criminal, though. She's dispatched messengers all across the world for ye. Begs ye to return to Port Royal." _

"_Does she?" Jack asked, blowing smoke into the messenger's face. _

"_Aye, she's ready to offer me a handsome reward if I bring ye back." The man's eyes gleamed, and Jack noticed for the first time the pistol in his hand, cocked. _

"_Bounty hunters," Jack chuckled, offering the man his cigar. The man lowered his pistol and took it. "I wish I could help, mate. But unfortunately, Jack Sparrow is dead, as you soon will be." _

"_I beg pardon?" _

_Jack shot the man between the eyes, and then paused to reclaim the cigar from his lips. "I said, Jack Sparrow is dead." And with that he spun on his heel and ducked between the warehouses, out of the lapping firelight, moving firmly toward the beach. Third messenger to find him this week, third to die doing _her_ bidding. He would have no peace if something wasn't done. Stamping his cigar out on a half-dead palm tree, he sighed. It was time to find Gibbs._

* * *

The candlelight was like gold flakes in a treasure chest, unconsciously mesmerizing, distracting. Elizabeth sat awake in their cabin on the White Araby, suddenly glad that they had survived the little adventure. How different adventures were when you had a whole silent crew at your beck and call... and when you had a lover at your side.

Jack was asleep but just barely, she could sense dreams looming in to wake him again. How many nights had she laid awake whispering to the gods that she would take his torture from him, bear it herself, if she could? How many nights had she whispered half-serious incantations, begging to be allowed into his dreams, begging to fight them off? It was so rare that he slept, and Elizabeth was still deeply uncomfortable when he woke weeping or crying out. It didn't seem right that she observed him when he was so helpless. Such privileges were not meant for a chance lover taken on the road.

She looked at the object in her hand, the map of strange instructions that would lead them to the treasure. The texture was unfamiliar; if she had to guess, she would say some kind of papyrus, though she didn't know if people still used such things. Two edges were ridged neatly; two others were frayed as though torn. Perhaps torn out a scroll, long ago? Littered about both sides of the map, in no order, were all the phrases, in at least ten different languages. No actual location mentioned, to her knowledge; just vague suggestions of experiences.

There was only one tiny fragment written in English, the same phrase Jack had read to her before. _"The journey to gaining your heart's desire is not a single location, but a succession of experiences you must have. Only then will the path reveal itself to you."_ Heart's desire. What a horribly trite phrase. And the succession of experiences that ought to lead her back to her husband had led her into the arms of another man. Elizabeth strongly suspected this "map" of being every bit as mischievous as the voodoo compass that had so vexed her years ago.

She stood back from the bed, rolling a few dried leaves of tobacco into newsprint absently. Her fingers were shaking, her muscles worn out and cold. She fit the narrow cigarette between her lips and held a match to the candle, intrigued by the rush of pain as one of her fingers got in the way of the flame. Too late she dropped the match, and contented herself with cursing and enjoying the smoke that hovered around her face from the tobacco.

She found her way to the deck, where Mahmoud was chatting with Boswell and Hayot. The coast of Africa slipped along the horizon with comforting predictability.

"Marhaba," she said with a little duck of her head.

"Marhabteen," returned Mahmoud with an amused look. Elizabeth's accent, as he had told her many times, was dreadful. "Where is the Viscount?"

"Asleep in our bed," Elizabeth said, purely because she enjoyed the blush that spread across Mahmoud's face—and the way he tried to hide it—whenever she made reference to the fact she was the Viscount's lover. "Which of these is Arabic?" She held up the map, and Mahmoud's face morphed from embarrassment to interest.

"The Viscount allows you to make free with his most precious treasures?" he questioned, taking the map and studying it. "He barely let me have a glance, and only to translate for him. This one. Find someone who was once your enemy—"

"Yes, I've heard that one," Elizabeth interrupted. "Boswell, can you read any?"

"The French one," Boswell returned, pushing back his light curling hair. "Face your greatest fear, it says. Whatever you are most afraid of doing, you must do."

A new one. Elizabeth closed her eyes, trying to decide what she was most afraid of. Once, she had been afraid of so many things. But since leaving Port Royal years ago, life's monotony had stripped her of most happiness and most fear. She was more interested in what Jack might be afraid of. After all he'd been through, there couldn't be much left.

* * *

_Port Royal at night had become seedy—a younger, less cynical version of Tortuga, despite the Royal Navy's best efforts. Elizabeth Turner ducked in and out of the streets she knew so well, marveling at their newfound dinginess. With piracy came filth, stench, corruption as thick as palm wood. Poverty the islands always had, but neatly tucked away behind well-ordered docks and English architecture. As the criminals grew bolder, public morale drooped and even the buildings began to take on the oily, smoked down guise of an old sea hand. Elizabeth wasn't as idealistic as she had once been. The pirates, thieves, beggars, and other disreputables had driven out the last vestige of good men and women among whose society she would once have been found. She had chosen her side and stuck with it, but it was sometimes a punishment to call herself king of these people. They were ignorant and rootless, unable to make plans or improve their situations in life. Without Jack, they lost their glamour and became desperate mouths to feed. _

_Jack had told her once that if she wanted to find the truth about God, she must go up to a high place, a high mountain. But if she wanted the truth about humanity, she must find it in the underworld, with the cast-off garbage of life. So here she was on the lowest rung of humanity, and whatever truth she had found seemed empty. _

_Elizabeth turned her face from a pack of street urchins begging for coin, struggling between guilt and irritation. She didn't have time to think of it for long; she heard the old clock in the square striking 2 AM, and cursed as she stumbled over hidden refuse. Late, late, she was always late, always running out of time, always behind. And she was being followed. _

_What I would give for a taste of freedom! She thought dully as she ducked into a doorway, preparing to silence her shadow. What I would give for a breath of country air… _

_The figure nearly ran past unnoticed, but Elizabeth snapped back into reality at the right moment to plunge her sword into the person's back. Noiselessly, he fell into the street and Elizabeth yanked back her wet blade. Almost by accident she caught a glimpse of the face as she turned to flee. "Oh God," she muttered out loud, unable to stop from bending down to get a closer look. It was little Georgie Harris, her childhood friend, now at the cusp of manhood. Damn the Royal Navy; what would possess them to place such a naïve little recruit on the job of following adept criminals? _

_People coming. Elizabeth allowed herself one more curse, and then skittered off. Death meant so little to her these days. She darted into the square and felt a strong hand cover her mouth; prepared, she went limp and allowed herself to be pulled into the shadow under the clock. It was him. _

"_You're late," the man who called himself Jekho said congenially, in that sandpaper black voice._

"_I got caught up dealing with a tagalong," she replied, her own voice masked, barely a breath. Like him, she didn't sound human anymore._

"_So have you got what I asked?"_

_Elizabeth swallowed hard and kept her eyes on her boots. "Yes. In the harbor." _

"_Well done, darling. This will be your last payment, and then you'll be free. Fancy that!"_

"_Yes," Elizabeth agreed without enthusiasm. "Fancy that." Free, he said. What a cruel joke. _

_He seized her hand with almost friendly cheerfulness and together they marched past the cliffs, over the bridge and towards the dock. Sentries wisely ignored the sight of the Jekho, and Elizabeth shrank into his shadow, hoping her face wasn't recognizable. The ships in the harbor seemed to retreat from her, whispering together, black against a faded night sky. When had ships become an enemy? When Elizabeth realized that ships didn't just mean freedom, perhaps. When she realized that ships carried conquerors across the sea to destroy native people, that ships carried slaves across the sea to make the fortunes of old kings far away, that ships had carried everyone she loved far away and left them there. The sea mocked her, and from the desolation of the Jekho's shadow, she hated it. _

_Her captive, her prize was where she had left it; neatly stowed and still groggy under the farthest dock. She kicked it with her foot. _

"_Pick him up. Have to make sure he's genuine, you understand." _

_Elizabeth nodded. She drew out her little knife and cut the bonds of the captive, and then, biting her lip, helped him to his feet. _

"_Mrs. Turner," his rough-beat voice hissed. Elizabeth didn't meet his eyes, but stooped to pick up his hat, which had fallen to his feet. She placed it on his head and it stayed there, the feather quivering. "Never thought I'd see the day."_

_I'm not sorry. "It's just business, Barbossa." That, and there was no other way out of her debt. No other way… _

_The man who called himself Jekho was smiling. Eyeing his prize with the glee of someone who had done the catching himself, not relegated it to others. "Well done, my dearest. You're free to go." _

"_Wait," Elizabeth said, knowing she should turn and run while she had the chance. "What's to become of him?"_

_He tilted his head. "Same thing what becomes of them all. Did you want to watch?" _

_Elizabeth felt sick and faint. Almost like she was betraying her own father. The memory of metal clicking around a slender brown wrist flitted through her head. "Yes," she breathed suddenly, thinking she would take the risk. Fear had kept her from trying before. But the old clock was ringing 2:15 somewhere, and she was too tired to be afraid now, too tired to be sensible. Maybe it was the death of that Harris boy; maybe it was the thought of Jack that finally pushed her over the edge. _

_The Jekho pulled out his silver knife, the only knife in the Caribbean she was afraid of. He was almost trembling with excitement. Elizabeth well knew of the sadistic depths of the Jekho's appetites, but it didn't lessen the horror. Barbossa stood stock still and looked him dead in the eye. The Jekho stepped closer, lifting the knife as if to indicate where he would cut first. Elizabeth moved her hand imperceptibly to her belt. _

_An explosion of movement happened all at once; Elizabeth pulled her weapon to strike him, but the Jekho reacted first; his silver knife was at her throat._

"_Ah, darling one," he mused, flicking at her skin with the edge until the blood ran down, "Not a wise move from my little black swann!" _

_The Black Swann. Her famed calling card, as it had once been. The reminder roused whatever feistiness was left in Elizabeth after a very long day, and she reached with one hand to caress the Jekho's eerie, colorless face. "Sweet Jekho," she whispered, her hand on his ear, through his lank white hair, down the too-thin curve of his neck. "You mustn't be angry. I'm only trying to learn from you." And she flashed him the guileless, little-girl smile that had disarmed a hundred others. It was only a thread of luck that the Jekho dreamed of that little-girl smile at night sometimes, and lusted after it. _

_Her cheap distraction gave Barbossa the moment he needed to pull out the weapon Elizabeth had left him with when she bound him. Disregarding all rules of honor (thankfully), Barbossa shot the Jekho between the eyes. Elizabeth jerked back as he fell to the ground, and stood, stunned and intensely relieved to find that the Jekho died like any other human did, with blood and stillness. Only, his blood seemed very dark on his paper white skin, pooling under his too-thin neck. It was just the waning of the moon, Elizabeth assured herself, that made his blood look black. _

"_After all this time," she murmured at last, "I can't quite believe that fiend is dead."_

"_They die easy in the end," Barbossa remarked, packing up his pistol. He had guarded her back more often than he cared to admit, and pirate or not, begun to believe he could trust her. He sneered again, watching her gaze out at the ocean. Never trust a pirate, and never, ever trust a woman. Those were his only two rules for life, weren't they? If he made exceptions, if he ended up unconscious on a dock and about to be carved up by the Jekho's famed silver knife, it was his own bloody fault. _

"_Barbossa, I didn't mean for—" She was twisting her hands together, trying to salvage whatever friendship had been between them. Half a step too late, as always. _

"_None of yer excuses," Barbossa growled, adjusting his hat. "I'd kill ye meself, if I didn't fear eternal damnation from that fool husband a yers." By the law of the seas, a man could make a living by the sweat of his brow and the strength of his back, or by selling off companions as need allowed. But the latter obviously didn't breed friendship. "I'm afraid, Mrs. Turner, you are entirely untrustworthy." _

"_Aye, Captain Barbossa," she agreed, mollifying him a little with that title, "I am entirely untrustworthy. Woe to the man who trusts a viper like me!" She lifted her chin and let off indulging. She was tired, so tired. The truth was, she had planned on watching him die. She had made a decision to walk away and let the Jekho do his foul business. Some unnatural rush of emotion had stopped her from going through with it, but the decision hung there between them, cutting her off from the last person she felt safe with. Death meant so little to her these days. "I take it you're leaving, then?"_

"_Never to return," he said, always one for drama. "You may inform the town that the legendary Captain Hector Barbossa killed the Jekho in a magnificent dual, and that the fiend took his end honorably." _

_Ah, yes. The Jekho was dead. That would certainly change the landscape of Port Royal again. Elizabeth stuck out her hand. "Goodbye, then. I wish you luck." _

"_And I wish you the devil," Barbossa said, shaking her hand and finally smiling, a real genuine smile of sinister meaning as he leaned forward to plant a friendly kiss on her mouth. "And as much luck as raisin' a child takes!"_

* * *

"I'm afraid of many things," Jack said with a quiet laugh. "Why else would the nightmares come?"

"I wish you would tell me everything," she muttered, swinging her legs out over the water. Another magnificent sunset. Looking back, Elizabeth had mainly remembered the moments of battle and glory in her days as a pirate; now she realized, these were the moments she had missed the most… these endless, dreamy moments of freedom. The sound of the waves against the hull, the odd gull crying from away towards the coast, even the ever-changing smells of the ocean leaping past. It got into her blood, soothed her soul. Everything in her relaxed and came alive.

"There isn't much to tell," Jack said softly, his hand in hers. "I don't remember it right. Everything's become all twisted and exaggerated, I'm sure."

"How did your wife die?"

Jack looked at her with a frown; he hadn't ever mentioned Angéle in her presence. "Royal Navy. How I'll die too, one day, I suppose."

"I don't think so," Elizabeth said. "I think you'll die of old age."

"No," Jack retorted with a smile. "I'm immortal. Didn't I tell you I had found the Fountain of Youth?"

"So you did." But looking at the lines of time so clearly marked in his face, Elizabeth didn't quite believe it.

"My wife was a slave. Runaway, when she married me."

"And did you give her a lavish wedding?"

A pointed look from him. "Do you know me at all, darling?" They had whispered their vows to each other alone, on the deck of the Pearl. The Pearl that was no more; a life that was gone. Instead of the usual rush of pain, Jack felt only a bittersweet tinge of nostalgia.

Elizabeth rested her head on Jack's slender shoulder, the dark braid of his hair tickling her face. "I'm sorry, Jack," she said softly. "But I'm glad you're here with me now."

_So am I,_ he thought. _So am I._ But he only sighed. He was thinking they would have to postpone the French direction on the map, because the thing he was most afraid of doing was facing Elizabeth's husband.

* * *

**More to come soon. Ethiopia, a translator, an old friend, and an accidental confession... **


	11. The Port of Obock

**Ch. 11 **

**Thank you so much for the lovely reviews:) **

* * *

Quarter past ten. Elizabeth smoothed the cover of Jack's pocket watch with her thumb, still finding it odd that he owned a watch, and carried it with him. The fast, rhythmic ticking sound agitated her. How would it be to carry such a thing against your breast all day and hear every second that vanished? Already she regretted the moments she had spent staring at the clock waiting for Jack. Ever since nearing the port town of Obock on the East African Coast, Elizabeth had to restrain a growing sense of panic that they were getting too close.

How quickly a month had flown by! With another exotic, bustling harbor outside (she had seen so many of late) Elizabeth cursed time for rushing. Time was running out; destinations were being reached with too much hurry and too little leisure for soaking in the man she had secretly come to love. Twenty times a day she found herself whispering it, thinking it, even saying it, of all things! When she watched him sleep she would murmur "I love you," and then curse herself for her foolishness, even deny it. But it was no use. She might have known she had grown too soft and too happy for her own good. It was all needless sentiment… the words didn't matter, whether true or false, the point was that he took her to his bed every night and many days as well.

Half past ten. Elizabeth was pacing the room now, trying to distract herself with memories. Back in the Caribbean, it had seemed that if she dared articulate the strange fever in her mind when she thought of the pirate Jack Sparrow, it would shatter like a delicate snowflake, too beautiful and remote to last. Their banter back and forth was like an intricate dance; the not knowing kept the rhythm fresh and exciting… the not touching kept their bodies pulsing and aching with forbidden desire. It had been a delicious game, one she didn't want to end through too much honesty. But giving herself over to him body and soul had opened wide a thousand new adventures, a new life. How cheap the old game seemed in memory, when compared with the heady truth of what they had now!

Quarter till eleven. Elizabeth cast herself on the bed in anguish of her own making. Of course Jack had things to see to. They had weighed anchor at the docks not two hours ago, and the dawn would bring another task for them to complete.

* * *

"_You didn't tell him about the curse," Elizabeth murmured in the blue hazy moonlight, overwhelmed by how small and forlorn Jack appeared on the deck of the Dauntless. He didn't belong here, in captivity… didn't belong amidst the order of the ship, or entangled in her own attempts to right the situation. The eerie collection of wrecks tumbled around them, a foreshadowing of doom that was hard to miss. She was juggling too many things, trying to save Will, trying to protect James Norrington's heart, trying to understand why visions of the island they had just left kept filling her mind. Couldn't they all see she was only a girl, in over her head? _

"_I noticed neither did you," Jack replied with an ironic smile. Burned the rum, and now she put another man's heart on the line to save her friend. She was undoubtedly in over her head. "Same reason I imagine."_

_Elizabeth was embarrassed by how easily Jack seemed to read her. "He wouldn't have risked it," she said in her own defense, trying to bury the guilt she felt when she thought of Norrington's accepted proposal. She would spend the rest of her life trying to bury that guilt, she thought dully, trying to convince both of them that she loved him and had accepted him with honorably intentions. What a life to look forward to. _

"_You could have gotten him drunk." _

_Jack Sparrow's easy humor broke through her melancholy ponderings. So he wasn't angry any more. She looked at him sideways, and thought for the first time how handsome he was. Perhaps it was the almost supernatural glow of the moon that made her realize that. What would it be like not to have any responsibilities… to sail away with him, to be a pirate? She wanted to escape it all… and she liked who she was when she was with him. She felt herself sure and capable, instead of clumsy and childish. She allowed herself to look him in the eye and imagine what it would be like to take orders from him aboard a pirate ship, perhaps to kiss him, even… _

_Her face must have shown her conflicting thoughts, because he interrupted again with, "Don't get me wrong love. I admire a person who's willing to do whatever is necessary."_

_Why was he forgiving her so easily? "You're a smart man, Jack," she said, more to herself than him. "But I don't entirely trust you." Or rather, she shouldn't entirely trust him, and she shouldn't allow moonlight and roguish black eyes to cloud her judgment. _

_A challenging half-smile appeared on his face; it seemed he could read her mind. He stepped forward, until he was just inches from her face. Her heart was pounding, she must be blushing, and she cursed herself for her own innocence. A powerful shiver went down her back as he leaned his face closer to hers. He's going to kiss me, she thought, trembling all over. She could smell the smoke from her fire still on his clothes and in his braids, smell the ship's brandy on his lips. But suddenly his mouth was by her ear, and his hand was briefly against her chest in a surprisingly intimate gesture. _

"_Peas in a pod, darlin'," was all he said. There was something unexpected in his face—fear, excitement, nervousness? She met his eyes and tilted her face so that the moonlight spilled across it, hoping he would understand from that act what she wanted, hoping he would let her daydream a few moments longer, knowing he would taste like the freedom she craved. Their lips inched closer; Elizabeth felt nothing but exhilaration, and then suddenly the Captain's cabin door opened and it all vanished._

* * *

The door opened. It was Jack. Under one arm he carried a large box, in his other hand, two glasses. He set both down and Elizabeth finally sprang off the bed to kiss him with abandon. His mouth obsessed her—the taste of metal from the gold teeth still hiding there, the endlessly chapped lips, the strength of his tongue to arouse her. His mouth was still the mouth of a pirate, flagrant and forceful.

"Wherever have you been?" she asked between kisses. He kissed with his hands, with his whole body.

"Always so concerned for where I've been… you aren't afraid I'll disappear, are you?"

"I must be," she returned with a breathless laugh. She was.

He twined his fingers through her hair and pulled her face back to look at him. How gentle he had become because of her—how attuned to his senses, how observant of her every detail. "Don't be afraid, Lizzie," he ordered softly. Wherever he was, he was thinking about her— the glimmer of gold spreading through her hair, the darkening shades of her skin beneath the African sun, the way she rebuilt him from the outside in.

Her back was turned to him; she was opening the box he had brought. She had found the row of rum bottles there.

"I didn't think you liked it anymore," she said. Jack gave her an amused look.

"You don't lose your taste for rum, my dear. Not ever. When you stop drinking rum, you do it for other reasons."

"Such as?"

"Such as… to no longer be a rum-soaked pirate so as you can accomplish something in life."

"I liked you when you were rum-soaked," Elizabeth teased, pulling out a bottle and uncorking it. The smell went through the room at once, thick with memories. "You were happier… laughed more."

His black eyes grew serious from across the room, distant with that melancholy wisdom. "I don't think I was happier. Just fooling myself."

"So are you re-acquiring the old vices then?"

Jack took the bottle from her poured both glasses full. He shrugged and indicated the map laying nearby. "It's an order, I'm afraid. _El Vino_, as Plato said, H_e was a wise man who invented it_. And it's a wise man that can hold his drink. A bit absurd, but there it is. I'm to drink you under the table, or pass out trying."

Elizabeth snatched up the map. "I don't believe you. What has that got to do with finding your heart's desire?"

"Everything," Jack insisted. "When you're stone drunk, you know exactly what you want, and aren't afraid to say it."

"I suppose," Elizabeth conceded, though she had never been stone drunk in her whole life. There was a first time for everything, she thought. "Well, let's get on with it then." She raised her glass. "Cheers. To rum-soaked pirates."

They clinked glasses and took deep gulps. After a moment Jack put down his glass and shook his head. "Forgot how much I loved it. This might be a short night, though. I'm out of practice."

"You remember the island, Jack? I dumped most of my rum into the fire. A few sips sent my head spinning."

Jack drained his glass and Elizabeth followed suit. "I remember everything," he said with an unnatural light in his eye. "A vile drink, you said it was."

Elizabeth emptied the bottle into their glasses. "Do you miss the Caribbean?"

They both swallowed another gulp. Jack looked pensively into the candle. "Can't go back," he murmured, slurring slightly. Another swallow. "Too many memories."

"But some good memories, too?" Elizabeth's head spun as she brought the glass back to her lips and emptied it. Everything inside of her felt deliciously free. She would have become a drunk ages ago if she had known it was like this.

"Aye, Lizzie," Jack said with a lecherous smirk. His voice had changed, he was Jack the pirate again. "Some good memories. But you went away, you see…"

They uncorked another bottle, drank another glass. "Jack, you were the one who saved my husband's life." She tilted her head and began unbuttoning her bodice, as if to remind him he had got whatever he could have wanted from her, because here she was, half-naked in his bed.

"Aye, cause I loved ye!" Jack said, pronouncing each word firmly in the midst of his intoxication. "You're very persuasive when you cry, darlin'."

"You… you loved me?" Elizabeth stammered, dizzy as they both drank another. Jack set down his glass heavily and leaned towards her.

"I love ye now."

"Jack, don't be foolish," Elizabeth said, struggling to make the words come out. "You desired me… as you do now."

Jack delicately traced her face with the back of his hand, his eyes dilated and burning black. "Yes, I want ye. Want ye in me arms, want to belong to ye. I love ye. And don't tell me I don't because I do, if I ever knew what it was to love."

Elizabeth finished her glass. "I can't quite believe it… I thought we were only…" She couldn't think clearly, couldn't understand what he had said. And his voice… darker, rougher, no longer polished and careful but dangerous… She straddled him on the bed, smudging the precise line of kohl around his eyes until it was as she remembered it. "We can't afford to love, Jack… we haven't got that privilege. Just kiss me, just kiss me… Nothing else matters to me… " He moved his lips down her neck, to her throat, and she moaned as he inched downwards, burying his face in her skin.

"It does matter…" Jack whispered, yielding to her touch, already moving with the rhythm of her body. "More than anything else, I wanted you to know."

_I did know_, Elizabeth thought blissfully, writhing in pleasure as he lowered himself onto her body. _We're fools, both of us together, and it'll be our undoing…_

* * *

Elizabeth ducked around a sharp corner and ran through the streets, draped in a heavy cloak despite the heat. The shroud covered her hair and face, masked the glow across her cheeks and the wild pounding of her heart. Their tasks became darker and more dangerous, it seemed, with each passing day. And Jack was elusive and distant, never sleeping, never at peace. Elizabeth had grown used to it.

She paused to catch her breath under an awning, startled by the squawk of a seagull above her. Afar and Arabic hummed around her in the night: men's voices from their fire-lit gatherings near the port. She clutched the pistol in her sleeve and darted on. The remnants of the market littered the street and sent a wave of spicy fragrance into the air. Cattle roamed by freely, and Elizabeth scanned the remaining merchants, her eyes sharply trained for the red head-cloth she was meant to look for.

There it was. A tall man with an odd gait, his back to her, a red scarf knotted around his thick gray hair. Elizabeth drew her cloak tighter around her face and slowed herself to a walk, looking back nonchalantly in case there were followers. At the Cape of Good Hope she had nearly been caught by the Dutch Traders, alerted to their presence and past by the trailing Moroccans that Jack inexplicably ignored. Freed slaves, killed soldiers, and notorious stories of Caribbean exploits were all stacked against her in that case, but Jack intervened. He always knew the right person, the right words, and the location of the back door or escape tunnel. But then, on Ile de France off Madagascar Jack had been taken and nearly killed before Elizabeth and crew arrived to free him, at the expense of a dozen lives. Certainly he had many enemies, and it did not make obeying the map easy. Twelve items there were, nine now completed. They had played Robin Hood to feudally entrapped natives, disturbing wealth and humiliation to the Europeans. Jack gave up treasures he had won in exchange for an hour with a storyteller, learning the history of each land they visited, learning old remedies and superstitions, learning of their gods. To gain your heart's desire, Elizabeth thought, you apparently must first know everything about the world.

But in the process, they began to know each other. How Elizabeth loved the early morning, the sunrise; how Jack wanted Elizabeth's arms around him through the night, wouldn't allow her to turn away. How he was happiest under an afternoon sun on the open ocean; how she disliked goodbyes and never said them to the people they met. Habits, fears, dreams…

The red scarf turned a corner. Elizabeth pinched herself and steadied her breathing. The man moved quickly now, and the smoke of a pipe drifted back after him. Elizabeth found the smell strangely familiar.

The man strode into the courtyard of a mosque and Elizabeth hung back, first ascertaining that the place was empty. There was a cook fire in one corner and the faint drone of prayers inside. Otherwise, safe. Elizabeth risked it and slid in, staying close to the white-washed walls. The red scarf must have noticed her, because he paused and then took a rapid glance around… and then walked directly towards her.

"Captain… Barbossa?" Elizabeth breathed, certain she was wrong. The man before her had thinned considerably; he seemed aged, hard, mean.

"My dear Elizabeth," he said in that familiar growl, "It's been too long."

"What are you doing here?" Elizabeth hissed, pulling him into the shadow of the wall and taking in his foreign clothing.

"I might ask you the same thing," he said, raising an eyebrow. "I thought you were back in England, languishing in society. Certainly you were, or I would have come and had some revenge for the last time we met."

Elizabeth dropped her eyes, but Barbossa only laughed.

"Don't worry about it," he said, placing a gnarled hand on her shoulder. "Life's become harder for the likes of us. So hard you seem to have taken up with a traitor, isn't that right? The Viscount of the seas, mocking us all with his wealth and success. He's no pirate, anymore. And we're all his lackeys. Though I'd wager he puts you to quite different duties than the rest of us…"

Elizabeth gave him a dark look. "Jack is no traitor, Barbossa. Life has been every bit as hard on him as on the rest of us."

"Has it?" Barbossa smiled cynically, shrugging away his cloak to reveal an emaciated frame, covered with the marks of a recent beating. "But it seems he risks your life as quick as he does mine. Here you are, beyond the port, after dark, with nothing but a pistol to your name."

Elizabeth lifted her chin. "Jack trusts me. I want this treasure as much as he does. And for now, I've succeeded in finding the messenger he sent me to find. I just… didn't expect you." She softened her proud tone when he bent to pick up his cloak, pulling it around his bony shoulders again.

"Aye," he muttered. "You've found me, Pirate King. And I've got what Jack wants, the translator. Abyssinia never was Jack's cup of tea. So let's get to the ship and dispense the pleasantries."

"Captain Barbossa…" Elizabeth pulled him into her embrace quickly, remembering their journey to the world's end. He had saved her life more times than she could count. "I'm sorry."

"No need, lass. No need. I may have given up my pride to work for the Viscount, but you've given up your son."

Elizabeth closed her eyes and shut her mind against memories, against the dull ache of loss. She had all but forgotten her son, and the realization hurt her deeply.

"This task won't do much to raise your spirits," Barbossa said, leading her towards the exit, seemingly well-aware of their journey and its purpose. "For whatever Jack holds to be most dear to him right now, he must give up and go empty handed to have his heart's desire." Barbossa looked at Elizabeth's face, the mirrored shadows there that so reminded him of Jack. "Whatever Jack holds most dear right now he must give up…" he repeated slowly. "That'll be you, I'm guessing."

* * *

More to come soon... 


	12. Right Decision, Wrong Reasons

**Ch. 12 **

_Thank you all for the wonderful reviews! I have enabled anonymous reviewing, which I didn't realize I had turned off. So anonymous readers, please do me the honor!_

* * *

This was what doom looked like: an old cowed enemy in a red scarf, a careless scrawl across a torn bit of paper. This was what despair looked like. "I won't do it." 

"Aye, ye will." Barbossa stood patiently before Jack, the news delivered. The noisy port was behind them, traders and pirates and fishermen, a cluster of vivid hues even beneath a blood-black night sky.

"You've written the page yourself. It's a lie."

"It's not, lad."

This was what heartbreak sounded like. A harsh honest croak, a few abhorrent words, abetted by the call to prayer from a nearby minaret, hatefully steady, mindlessly at peace. This was what the end sounded like.

"I'll give up my ship." Burn it as a monument, a shrine to her.

"It's not enough."

"I'll give up all the gold." Scatter it to the seven seas, make himself nothing again.

"Ye know it won't work."

This was what true helplessness smelled like. Like the cheap rot of fish bones, the madrasselva on the breeze, the shallow choking fumes of dung fires. This was what grief, fury, anger smelled like.

"I'll burn the map," Jack said in his rough obsidian voice. "Forget the treasure."

"Ye've a debt to be repaid."

Hateful truth, inescapable past, impossible task. Jack rested against the wood post of a street-lantern, his throat gradually closing. "Tell me there's a way out." He had found a way out of death. A way out of poverty. A way out of age.

"No way out."

Cut out a heart, stab a heart, damn his heart… No way out. _The pain was too much to live with, but not enough to cause him to die._ They were all slaves to fate. There were no decisions, only puppet motions carried out mechanically at the will of the gods. Teague chained to the cove, Savarna frozen to death on a bench after taking in too much opium, Elizabeth's mother running away with an officer, leaving her father with a broken heart, the prostitutes of Andalusia plying their trade, the beggar boys of Tangier with lives cut short by need and violence, the coal-black warriors dragged from their lives onto slave ships, all the people of the world locked in memories, regrets, chances they weren't brave enough to take… and him, brought back from sweet forgetful death by the decision of another.

"It's a high price, to gain yer heart's desire."

Angele, eyes open in unblinking death, her body spread across the alley. Bella, perfect, innocent, paying the price for who—and what—he was. _Pirate._ The Black Pearl, a scatter of charred black boards, a mocking effigy to freedom, a last reminder of his worthlessness. _Only a ship, mate._ All of this he had the power to remedy. And Elizabeth. Always he had known finding this treasure meant giving her up, giving her back, giving her away. To him. Breaking the curse, unstabbing the heart, re-trying the past. She didn't belong to him, and she never would. She had chosen Will, wanted Will, born his child, guarded his heart. _I'm so ready to be married_. He had the power to give him back to her.

"I'll do it," he said woodenly.

"Of course ye will," muttered Barbossa. "Nothing else to be done."

And he would be killing two birds with one stone. He wasn't afraid of facing her husband at all. Deep down, always, he had been most afraid of losing her. And so he would give up the thing dearest to him, he would face his worst fear… and there would be one task left. Only one, and then all would be accomplished.

"One last task," he whispered flatly into the night.

"What is it?"

Jack looked at him with a flood of enigmatic coldness, the coldness of the moon which reflected only the sun's light and never the sun's warmth, as Elizabeth had said. "It'll be accomplished," he said in a dead voice. "Why do you think I brought Elizabeth along in the first place?" There was a long pause. "The final task is to break someone's heart."

"And so ye'll break hers?"

Jack shook his head wearily. She didn't believe in love anymore. "Mine. I'll be breaking my own heart, letting her go."

So he would succeed. The most famed treasure, the last and final adventure. He crumpled the paper in his hand, his muscles strained and nearly snapping from the pressure. The only sound now was the plodding rhythm of his own heart. The sound of love. Aye, the sound of love unrequited, lost. The sound of goodbye.

* * *

Mahmoud stood idly on deck, watching the crew load up the _Pride of the East_, a privateer's ship soon to sail. And Elizabeth was soon to go aboard, for it was returning to London. He watched Jack pace the dock below, unwilling to come aboard and say goodbye. Mahmoud felt the strain of it all in the taught pull of the ropes on the fluttering sail of the Araby, nervous in the wind of a black midnight. The Viscount was an enigma. And Elizabeth was obeying him, as they all did. She had her stake in the treasure too; a past redeemed, an old love returned. Mahmoud pursed his lips into a thin smile, his hands folding out of habit under his sleeves. Calm faith never hurt like human love. In the mountains or on the sea, homeless and wandering, Mahmoud didn't trouble himself with the ways of women. He was safe. Na'am, yes he was safe. Insha'allah his heart would never be as defenseless as the heart of his master seemed to be in the wake of Elizabeth. 

"Mahmoud," Jack's forest-dark voice was quiet and steady.

"The ship's ready, Viscount," Mahmoud replied. "Ready to sail for London."

"And you spoke to her?"

"Of course. And you should as well."

Jack gave Mahmoud a half- dangerous glare. He looked at Elizabeth, leaning against the rail with a wistful look on her face, and turned away. The deck cleared; they were alone.

She was so still, so lovely in the moonlight. The wistful depth of her brown eyes caught him as comforting; he thought, he could lose himself in those eyes every day for the rest of his life. Find meaning, strength in them. Her charm was in her potential for being… so many adventures still to be had, so much life still to be lived. He wanted to sail her depths and discover her mysteries. Even with his possession, she remained elusive to him. She and her heart still belonged elsewhere. He could read it in her face when she saw children playing. He could see it in her eyes when she heard Boswell tell stories of the Flying Dutchman to the crew. He had thought he could give her everything, now that he was a success. And he had been wrong. He could never give her back what she had left behind when she joined him on the _White Araby_.

He wanted so to come up behind her and wrap his arms around her, kiss her neck with the ease of an unhindered lover. But nothing was as it should be.

She sensed his presence, and sighed. "I've been loved by many men, Jack Sparrow," she said softly. "But I've only ever been understood by one. By you."

In all that was beautiful she found the darkness, the sorrow. In all that was pure and poignant she found the fraying edge, the hidden crack. She stood alone under a slivered moon, beautiful beyond belief, beautiful in a way no one else ever saw her. They saw her in the day—dressed and serene, covered and pretending for all their sakes. They didn't see how dark, how enticing her eyes became at night… how beautiful her naked body looked in the half-light of a bedside lamp. Didn't get to see how her whole being seemed made for love, made to belong to someone who could fully understand her, fully adore her. They couldn't fathom the seductive tragedy lurking in the lines of her face, or how her hair was much better disheveled and loose… How her voice became the voice of Scheherazade in the night, beguiling and irresistible. She was as wild as the ocean in his arms, drowning him, resurrecting him. And she was all this _because of him_… for him.

She was in his arms now; she kissed both of his eyelids and the tear that found its way down his weather-worn cheek. _Oh heaven_, she thought, _I'll die before I leave him_…

"I used to pretend that you were my first mate," Jack murmured, hardly making sense. "In the old days, before the Cove and the victory over the Navy. I thought we would sail the seven seas together and have endless adventures... I thought… that we would argue and insult and annoy each other until the sun went down and the rum came out, and then we would bed each other with just as much recklessness. You know, like pirates, taking without asking… I think a little bit of that dream came true, these last months."

"I'll remember this journey forever," she found herself saying. And oh, she would. She would. The _White Araby_ set against the moon, the hours spent on her clean deck, the way Jack whispered her name as they made love. He had saved her; she had saved him. They had quarreled, resisted each other, finally given in. They had learned each other, left behind the old dark memories; they had wasted so much time! Elizabeth shuddered. Whatever happened, whatever great battles occurred or great triumphs came her way, whatever love she was able to find, whoever she became, it would be meaningless without him. She wasn't a child, wasn't even a girl on the cusp of womanhood; she felt herself old, steady, weathered. Cheap passion and youthful tenderness had fallen away and he was in her soul, spreading through her mind, overcoming her. "Jack Sparrow," she choked, "Pirate or Count, I have to be with you. I'd stay with you, if you asked me. I'd stay. Forget this treasure, Jack, forget the past. We'll go away, we'll hide somewhere, we'll find an island and disappear…"

He was looking at her with those hazy obsidian eyes, and she knew he was fighting his own desires. "The past always catches up. We both know that." He closed his eyes again and pulled her roughly against his chest, wrapping his body around her, silently rocking with emotion. "Oh, Lizzie, Lizzie… you've always been the lass for me." In a lifetime of cheap trinkets and tragedy, endless empty adventures, she had been the thing worth fighting for, worth dying for. She had been the one to ruin him, change him, redeem him. He would have gone on any journey to win her, given up anything to keep her… But what was done was done. Fate and choice had their way, now… and decisions had been made for both of them they couldn't ignore any longer. "Funny," he said softly into her hair, "Funny it should come to this." Funny they were weeping in each other's arms, rather than stone-cold enemies thrust against a mast. Funny they were fools in love instead of pirates with hidden motives. Funny they weren't betraying each other, weren't planning anything… not this time.

"There's nothing funny about it," she whispered. Nothing funny about her heart breaking. Nothing funny about wanting to cut it out, lock it in a chest, hide it from the world. The pain would be too much to live with.

"It's the right decision," Jack said in a hollow voice. A right decision, for all the wrong reasons. With the utmost gentleness, Jack traced the lines of her face with his lips, finally meeting her mouth. "I'm sorry if I've caused you pain," he murmured.

_Pain is only part of the journey_, Elizabeth thought with a surge of understanding. There was pain in the best of life, bringing light to beauty, bringing depth to joy.

What would be left, she had thought once, if she lost Will? Nothing. Yet she had lost him, and lived on. Days after loosing him, she had laughed and felt guilty about it. And then, in time, she stopped feeling guilty. She still had friends. She still had life in the Caribbean, a ship, a grand name. She still had adventures. But what would she have if she lost adventure? Nothing. No way to survive, no way to forget. And then she had lost them of her own accord, sold all her dreams to bear the infant in her womb, given up everything and everyone she loved. Yes, and then she had her son. She loved her son, built her life around him, ground the old Elizabeth into tiny pieces and blew them into the wind until she became a habitual smile meant for the child. What would be left, she thought, without her son? Nothing. She had nothing else, wanted nothing else, until Jack came and she had lost her son. And life had gone on. Now she had Jack, now she would lose Jack, and again life would go on. She would lose him to gain what must be her heart's desire.

"Goodbye, Jack," she whispered.

"It would never have worked between us, in the end," he lied heavily, a forced half-smile on his face. "Just remember that."

Their eyes locked. She lifted her chin, a slow moment passing. And then Elizabeth turned away from Jack. Down the ladder she went, across the dock with her hair streaming behind her, up the gangplank and onto another ship, back into another life. From across the narrow chasm of water she smiled at him.

_I love you, Lizzie._

She nodded her head, and he stood rooted to his spot, unable to look away. Everything was quiet, the ropes being undone, the sails furled, the shouts of the crew as they caught the high tide away. She was slipping away, slipping away on the waves, deep into an impenetrable horizon.

Alone on the deck of the _Pride of the East_, Elizabeth could no longer see Jack. The words she hadn't said hung in the widening space between them, and she whispered into the lonely night, "I love you too, Jack."

* * *

Jack ran his brown thumb over the cover of his pocket watch, cursing time for going on. It had happened too soon. It had happened too absolutely. She was gone. He was alone. And the treasure was nearly his. 

As if at the end of a long struggle, Jack slumped to the bed, resting his head in his folded hands. Helplessness, despair, passion, loss swirled around his head, as they had before; familiar and worse every time.

The map was there. Sinister and mocking, the worst enemy he'd ever had to face. He stared at the Afar entry, newly translated "that which you love most, you must give up and go forth empty handed…"

_No! I don't want the treasure that much. _His own thought surprised him. He traced over the worn phrases, the ones that had led him to her, the ones that had driven her away. "They're all about her," he said aloud, picking up the map. "This whole journey was for her."

His heart was racing; he didn't know why. He looked at the map again. "that which you love most, you must give up…" _No! I won't give her up! Whatever made me think I could? She is my heart's desire._

Everything went quiet. He said again, in a tremor, "She is my heart's desire." He didn't want his past back. He didn't want to fix it. He wanted a future, with _her_. He took the map in his hand and crumpled it. Will might take his soul back to the sea, back to the land of the dead, but he didn't care. He didn't care.

And he thought desperately, who am I? Who am I to fix this, to survive this, to succeed at this? Who am I?

The answer sprang to his head with a bright flash of hope. A cheap hope it may be, but still a hope, at the very least, a decision.

_I'm Captain Jack Sparrow._

His face cleared. He almost laughed. Hell or high water, failure or death, none of that mattered. A decision.

At once he stood and strode to a sandalwood trunk in the corner, off of which he cleared the trinkets and jewelry Elizabeth had left. He undid the clasp and opened it. A few inches of fabric he tossed aside, and then, with a dangerous grin spreading across his face, he lifted up an old worn coat, a stained and wrinkled shirt, a pair of threadbare breeches, a vest, a pair of boots. Off went the Egyptian cotton of his tunic, the embroidered silk jacket. Loose came his long braid, and around his head he wound a strip of red cloth. Almost savoring the feel of the old garments, he drew them on. Again he reached into the chest. A gun. A belt. A hat. Yes, last came the hat.

He caught himself in the mirror. And smiled again, a challenging smile, crushing a handful of kohl powder into his hands and smudging as Elizabeth had lately done, across the upper and lower lids of his eyes. Better. Everything was better suddenly. It was so simple! Too simple... the answer to the riddle, the answer to everything. She was his heart's desire. And he would win her back. Nothing else mattered. No more right decisions. No more noble reasons. No more debts to be repaid. Somehow, he would win her, teach her to love again.

_I'm Captain Jack Sparrow. _

"Mahmoud!" he cried, almost bursting out of his cabin with the careless swagger of a pirate. "Mahmoud!"

"Aywa, Viscount," Mahmoud tilted his head in submission, and to hide his curiosity. It was past 2 AM, and low tide.

"Get Pusti up here. She can braid, can't she?" At Mahmoud's puzzled nod, Jack continued, "and I need you to find black paint."

"Aywa," he said again, hesitantly.

"I want the ship painted, every bit of it, black. Savvy?"

He didn't bother to see Mahmoud's reaction. With a whistle, he swung himself back around, heading below decks with another thought on his mind: rum. Every crew member on deck was staring at him. Now fighting to hide his laughter, he called back,

"We sail at dawn."

"Do we have a heading, Viscount?"

"In the future, Mahmoud, you may call me Captain." Jack slid his hand into the pocket of his coat, knowing what he would find there, knowing that it would be pointing to her. "And yes, we have a heading."

* * *

More to come soon… 


	13. The Black Swann

**Ch. 13. **

_Because you guys were so lovely with reviews, I am posting the next bit very quickly. Mid-terms are half done. Many papers to write. But what the heck. I hope you enjoy!  
_

* * *

The day was a shimmer from the sky, wafting elusive, illusionary, tremulously stepping forward to an end unrecorded, unexpected, impossible. A king's train of seagulls swung down in front of the _Pride of the East_, their slender bodies twisting through the lucid air with mockery and disdain for the slow travelers. Elizabeth laughed because she could think of nothing else to do. She wanted to mourn and disappear in a drink, she wanted life to end. And the sun was everywhere that afternoon, spreading hope like a disease.

_London, London, London_… the name droned in her head like an evil chant. London should not be such a punishment. Her son was there. Her son who would probably never forgive her, never trust her again. _William, William, William… A good strong name. Named for his father._

Her heart thudded along in a dull elegy—her heart that was a lover, a wanderer, an adventurer, a pirate. Soon she would have her heart's desire. Her face tightened. She would have her past back. The curse would be broken.

Elizabeth twisted her hands against the unfamiliar rail of the privateer. A small ship it was, slow and unimportant. Safe. The crew consisted of only a few men. She didn't speak to them. A silent gathering of weeks it would be, all the lonely way back. Much like the trip had been the first time. Elizabeth pressed her hand to her middle. Yes, much like the trip had been the first time.

"Ship ho!"

Elizabeth caught her breath.

"Colors?"

"Black. Black flag."

Elizabeth ground her nails into the wood of the ship, hardly daring to turn. She wouldn't turn, couldn't bear to turn…

"Friendly?"

"Aye. Captain's waving for parley."

"Black Swann…" the crewman read the name off the side of the newly painted ship. "Never heard of her."

_The Black Swann_. Her calling card, her alias as Pirate King. Only he could know about it… Elizabeth turned. She saw him. Still hundreds of feet away, but so distinct—the way he stood, firm and unmovable, emanating heat from across the distance. A rush of elation swept over her, so strong, as if she saw a rescuer approaching from the gallows. _I love you, Jack…_

"They're coming closer. Looks as though he'll come aboard."

Aye, he would. Elizabeth ran the few steps to the starboard side, trying to get a better look. The memorable worn coat, the famous tri-corn hat… _hat?!_ From here she could see him better—braids, boots and all. Pirate._He was a pirate!_ The pirate who had saved her life so long ago—the pirate who had made her what she was. A wide, girlish smile spread across her face. She understood.

"He's coming for me," she said aloud.

"What's that, miss?"

"I said he's coming for me! He's a pirate, don't you see?"

The crewman shook his head. "Not much we can do against a ship that size, but we'll protect you as we can…"

"No!" Elizabeth was laughing now, impatiently leaning over the water, soaking up every glimpse of Jack as he neared. "He's not coming to kidnap me. He's coming to _rescue_ me!"

The crewman looked at her in confusion, and then back out at the _Black Swann_. Her sails were furled like wings in the breeze, every detail obsidian black. "What's that?" the crewman muttered suddenly.

Elizabeth pulled her eyes away from Jack to see another ship breaking fast behind them. The Moroccan ship—the one that had been following them.

'Don't move, Elizabeth."

Elizabeth shuddered and remained still. She knew the voice. So tired, so inestimably tired it was, so old. All but a few of the crew turned suddenly on her, weapons drawn. A mutiny.

"Barbossa," she whispered.

"It's all right, lass, it's just business, as ye said to me once."

She brought herself to face him. A pistol was directed at her, only inches away, sudden and irreversible. And the _Pride of the East_ was turning around at Barbossa's direction. Most of the crew had been bought beforehand. There was just no way out.

"I'm sorry, Elizabeth," Barbossa said again, but he wasn't—he was too weary, too broken down to be sorry.

"What is it you want?" Elizabeth asked. It was too fast to understand, to believe.

"We want Jack."

A canon fired behind them. And then another. The Moroccan ship was attacking the _Black Swann_. Elizabeth felt the sound of the canons jerk through her with a sickening thud. He had come for her—only to be caught in a trap. Barbossa had betrayed them to the Moroccans.

"Tell him not to fight, and we'll spare your life," Barbossa said.

"What?" Elizabeth backed away, her eyes fixed on the pistol.

"Tell him to surrender."

Surrender. Captain Jack Sparrow, surrender? Never. He wouldn't. "He won't!"

"Aye, he will if ye ask him to. He's nearly covered the map. He's about to have everything offered to him… and this time, he'll be giving the choice to us."

"Barbossa, you can't…"

"Life's been hard, lass," he said with a stony smile. Elizabeth knew she ought to feel pity for him, but she was filled instead with blinding wrath. "I wasn't about to let this treasure slip through me fingers."

Another canon was fired, and another. Shouts and smoke filled the air. Elizabeth could hardly breathe. The pistol came closer.

"Go ahead," Barbossa nudged her to the rail. "Tell him."

* * *

Moments later, Jack ran up the white flag of surrender. The Moroccans poured onto the _Black Swann_, thick as flies, triumphant.

"Jack!" Barbossa's pistol still at her back, Elizabeth climbed the ladder of the ship, her fingertips light against the black rail; she remembered her first view of the ship so many weeks ago, the night Jack had come back into her life, rescued her… "Jack!" She saw him across the deck, held by many strong men, a tangle of braids half-hiding the strange grin on his face.

"Lizzie!" he called to her, as though they were safe and alone. The black of his eyes wasn't cold any longer, wasn't threatening or cynical. It was warm, teasing, dangerous. "I came to tell you…"

"I know, Jack!" She fought her way towards him, despite the warning from Barbossa at her back. She heard the gun cock and stopped, breathless. "Oh Jack… I wanted to tell you. I love you. I love you, Jack."

His face lit up in a way that made her weak. He was so beautiful, a pirate once more, rough and brash and swaggering, hardly noticing the guns pointed at them or the fall in their fortunes. "Lizzie, you're my heart's desire. All I want. I never should have let you sail away like that…"

"Enough!" Barbossa said suddenly, weariness speckled across his face. "I never thought strandin' ye on that island would lead to such a tangle. But Jack, does she know the debt ye owe to her husband?"

"Debt? To Will?" Elizabeth questioned, taken aback.

"Aye," Barbossa said; his voice was smiling, his face was blank. "Captain Jack Sparra' was killed nigh on four years ago. Shot to death by the Royal Navy. And as I hear, brought back by none but the Captain of the Flying Dutchman, the only one with the power to do so."

"Killed?" Elizabeth trailed off as Jack lowered his eyes. Oh, how much he had suffered! And that was why he had nearly given her up—he didn't want the treasure, didn't want his old life back… he had a debt to Will. To break the curse. "Oh Jack…" she murmured, loving him fiercely, protectively, "I didn't know."

"I didn't tell you, love," he replied gently.

"It doesn't matter now," she said truthfully. "I won't give you up."

"Touchin'," Barbossa said with heavy irony. "But ye're wastin' my time. Jack, the map."

One of the men holding Jack reached into his pocket and drew out the crumpled map, smoothing it before Barbossa. Jack flashed him a wicked grin.

"It's no use, mate. The last task hasn't been accomplished. And I don't think I'm inclined to do it anyway."

Barbossa looked at the map for a moment, and then back at Jack. "Unfortunately for ye, I know the last task. To break someone's heart."

Jack's face fell. He looked desperately at Elizabeth. Barbossa caught the look.

"Aye. It'll be only too easy to accomplish this last one, lads," Barbossa said to the crew. He moved his skeletal form with difficulty around Elizabeth, looking Jack full in the face. "And since ye're the one who started this, it's ye're heart we'll be breakin'… and clearly the way to do it is to kill the woman you love. Lads, put her in the brig. We'll let them both suffer their last few hours apart."

"Hector, please!" Jack looked at him imploringly, the whisper of heartbreak already plain across his dark face. Barbossa had hit his mark.

"No other way, Jack," he said jadedly. "But ye won't outlive her by much. Its well I let ye see her one last time, so as she could profess her undying love for ye." A resentful light came into Barbossa's tired eyes. "Love. A terrible place to put yerself when ye've got everything to lose."

"I'll do anything," Jack said, unable to hide the anguish in his voice.

"There's no other way to get the treasure. She dies at dawn."

* * *

It was the stale lifeless hour before dawn.

A man in a cloak walked steadily below deck on the _Black Swann_. Before him, a door of iron. Around him, the sea. Beneath his feet, the curve of mortal wood.

Elizabeth stood concealed in the shadows, and every so often a grain of torchlight would grow bold and expose an inch of the ivory skin, a glint of the burning eyes. The man in the cloak quietly slid through the doorway, locking it behind him, caging them in together. Elizabeth did not respond to the noise or his presence, she was far away. A gentle drip of water could be heard in the distance, and the shy crackle of fire, causing his movements to seem loud as he reached beneath his heavy cloak and drew out his sword. Elizabeth's eyes cleaved to the shining metal— _sweet angel of death and forgetfulness_— but the man in the cloak held up his other hand, warning her back. Elizabeth wore only the thin linen of a nightdress, and her pulsing flesh cried out to the blade with a promise of the richest blood, unending blood. The silence of the place became unbearable and Elizabeth uttered suddenly with untellable pathos,

"Why have you come here?" The man in the cloak was silent for a moment. "It is not yet dawn," Elizabeth said, stepping nearer, offering up her neck to him, "but do as you will."

"I have not come for death, Elizabeth."

"What then?" she asked dully. "To torment me with the cool touch of metal I cannot feel? To gaze upon the body of a beautiful woman one last time?" He did not respond. "_What then_?"

"Your life," He said slowly, softly, "is not to be taken by these mortals, Elizabeth. Your life is not theirs to command."

She laughed harshly. "So it has always seemed." The bitterness of her laugh surged against the air, and the man in the cloak recoiled from it. And then, all of a sudden, Elizabeth was changed. The mask of pride fell away for a moment, and with a trembling hand she reached for the sword. Her eyes flickered and then swept fearfully around for a last glimpse of life… she was only a girl, young, unaided, heart already breaking. Her beauty, no longer focused sharply within, flowed freely from her and brushed about his skin. Elizabeth took the sword, and the man let her, and she held it to her heart.

"Deliverance," she whispered, tears wetting the blade. She looked up to him imploringly, for she could not easily let go of life. "Drive it in," she begged softly, "For I do not have the strength."

The man in the cloak reached up, his hand shaking madly, and grasped the sword hilt.

Elizabeth closed her eyes. He imagined that he drove it in, let her blood loose to set fire to the world, for it was burning her from the inside. Before he dared to let it happen he imagined the sword sliding through the white flesh above her heart, setting her soul free to soar away to the heavens, to suffer eternity in penance, to pay for all she had done, to be worshipped for all that she had endured. Elizabeth's life was his, and with his trembling hands just inches away from her, the man in the cloak was ready to take it. But he could not. He threw the sword mightily against the floor and cried, "It is dawn!" Elizabeth did not move. "Elizabeth! You shall not_die_ by my hand or theirs."

"You speak in riddles," she breathed, her eyes yet closed.

He looked at her wonderingly, and whispered, "I think death has found its match in you." A pause. "Your lover has been taken."

The change of tone startled Elizabeth from her trance. She drew back, looking for the first time at the man in the cloak, unable to see his face. "Yes."

"He is alive as long as he is useful." He met her gaze, and then slowly, with heavy emphasis, "Which won't be long."

"Not long," she repeated faintly.

"You belong with him." The man in the cloak said this abruptly, and Elizabeth did not flinch.

"You know this?"

He nodded, expressionless. "I beg you not to ask me questions. Let it be enough to know. I cannot guess all you have given up for him already, but it seems he requires more of you. Now go."

"Go?" she whispered, incredulous. In swift response the man unlocked the bars and threw the door open.

"Go!" He almost shouted. "I do not know what madness has taken me in this action, but by the living and the dead I swear I will kill you if you do not go now!"

Elizabeth stared at him, frozen for an instant, and without thinking her body reached for the man under the cloak, her lips met his, she was against him, too warm to endure.

"Go." William Turner convulsed at the prospect of her touch, freely given, well knowing he would break in another moment. He could bear no more. "_Go_!"

She turned and fled.

* * *

_More to come soon... _


	14. Masa Al Khair

**Chapter 14.**

Thank you so very much to all my dear readers and reviewers! A million hugs to you… I know I left some things up to the imagination in the last chapter, and I am so glad you liked it.

Spoiler: _"Then I take the bullet and you get back on the __White Araby__ and sail off to the horizon. Savvy?" _

* * *

_A dark tree grew in the forest, roots black as the oily black water of the Tigris, weaving and corrupting their way through the forest soil, graceful as a dancer. If the tree were a man, the girl thought, he would drink absinthe and brood, he would be tortured and cynical, he would be a soldier and a prophet. But the dark tree laughed at the girl when she said this, laughed his esoteric laugh out of the tips of old dead leaves and crumbling bracken. The dark tree stood obsidian black against a plum-brown sky. It pointed to nothing in particular and drew attention away from whatever watery stars dared to shine at night. Night was for the tree. Night was swallowed in the tree's laughter. The girl loved the night. The girl loved the tree. _

_Night kept itself cool and religious for the tree's sake. How much better, how much more effective was the tree when the night was like an empty cathedral: ominous, splendid and corpse-like. _

_The girl thought, it has been long since I have seen such a part of my soul. Such a dark part, intricate as Byzantia. The roots of the tree are tangled like the black braids of a man; the roots of the tree could hold me down and choke me, keep me prisoner or give me up to the night. The roots of the tree smelled like sugared coffee in a rainstorm. The tree was always damp and perfumed. _

_In the night the Sidhe rode and Mary prayed, and the spider-hands of the tree branched over both with careless equality. The girl was both and the tree was neither. They waltzed in the dim hour before dawn, waltzed to the plink of a single violin, waltzed to the torrent of doom set against them, waltzed in a way that made the air tremble. And the night, confused and covetous, ended. _

_Masa Al Khair._

* * *

Jack's arms were twisted around the rough-hewn wood of the beam, his muscles aching and stiff, his hands bound in cord that cut into his flesh. On his knees, his head bowed, he focused on each facet of his physical pain, thinking that perhaps it would begin to drown out the torment of his mind. But the pain was a mere trifle, hardly worth noticing compared to the storm writhing within him. It must be nearing dawn. The night had been an eternity that far out-matched his worst moments in the locker. There was no window in the sliver of a room, no way to tell, only anguished imaginings and the hell of ticking somewhere, a clock he couldn't see where he was bound. 

Elizabeth. The smooth clever line of her face, the irregular intensity of her eyes, the ironic curve of her lips… he thought about the way she slept with her face smashed against the pillow, curled up on her side, her breathing almost silent. He pictured the squeamish twist of a frown that would hit her face when he got up in the morning, leaving a cold space beside her. The funny half-walk, half-run she managed when she was thinking too hard about something. The impulsive, reckless way she drew her sword in the midst of taut conversations, her unique form of persuasion. The pride that kept her posture perfect, the regret that weighted her down. The eagerness with which she lived life. Elizabeth.

He had destroyed her. His was as the touch of death, wounding, corrupting, shattering those he loved most. In his own weakness he had taken her, succumbed to her, loved her… aye, loved her too much, gotten drunk on hope and was paying for it now. She could be safe, a thousand miles away with her son. She could be sleeping peacefully instead of waiting for her death in a cold awful cell, knowing she had none but _him_ to blame for it.

Jack's heart lashed in his chest with smarting pain, thinking of her alone and afraid, thinking he couldn't help her. Pirate or not, he had no plan. Barbossa knew them too well, was too well prepared.

The ship rocked erratically, a tumultuous echo of Jack's thoughts. How exquisite were the sharp stinging jolts down his arms, how precious the throbbing of his neck and back. Almost the pleasure of forgetting. Almost the pleasure of death.

"Jack."

He was imagining her voice. Rich and quiet as a goodnight kiss. Masa Al Khair, Elizabeth.

"Jack," she said again, and he opened his eyes to realize her arms were around him, wrapped like tree roots.

"Jack," she said a third time, kissing him on the mouth, his one true love. "I love you, Jack."

"Why do you love me, Lizzie?"

She smiled a secret smile like sun mirrored on water across a sunny bay. She kissed him again, kissed him like they had no past and no future and would die in each other's arms here, in bliss from this one last kiss. He lost himself in the labyrinth of pleasure and ecstasy of her roving hands and open mouth, her racing hot blood and her salty chapped lips. Her hair was falling across him, a tapestry and a protective spell, everything that was beautiful and good covering him, making his pain sweet.

"You still believe in love, then?"

"Still," she whispered. "Always." This was love ruling her. Love that betrayed and deceived, love that changed and re-formed, love that killed and revived, love like a pirate.

"Have you escaped, or are you a fantasy?"

"I have been set free," she whispered even softer, hardly a breath. "And now I will free you."

There was a sword in her hands, heavy and honest and real against his skin. She was cutting his bonds. She was cutting them swiftly with the skill she had shown the night he stood behind her curtains waiting to parry her. He was free.

She buried her fingers in his braids, cheek to cheek with him. "Time for another secret grand adventure, Captain Jack Sparrow. We'll find a way out yet."

"Sometimes you lose your life on the journey to your heart's desire," Jack reminded her, the warning hollow against the grin across his face.

_This is a journey _with_ my heart's desire_, Elizabeth thought. _And this is a journey of gaining and finding now. I will never give him up._

* * *

"_I will never give you up," Elizabeth's mother whispered over her bed, smelling like the rosewater she bathed in. Elizabeth clutched her hand, twisting the rings that adorned her mother's elegant fingers. She was a shadow of a woman, a wistful smile and a rush of tinkling laughter. Everyone, Elizabeth thought, must love her and worship her. Certainly their worlds all revolved around her._

"_Mother, don't go to the party," Elizabeth begged, risking her mother's displeasure by tightening her grip, reaching for the rosette pinned to the bodice of her gown. _

"_Now, now, Elizabeth," her mother chided lightly. "Be a good girl and let go. You're such a wild thing." She said this last bit with a frowning bewilderment, as though she couldn't imagine where Elizabeth had come from. "I don't want to hear that you've been a bad girl and torn your dress or mussed your hair again, do you understand?" _

"_I'll be good mother, if you stay," Elizabeth said. "I promise."_

"_I have to go to the party," Elizabeth's mother said, averting her gaze from the little girl's piercing brown eyes. She turned away, fidgeting a bit with her dress, her pulse quick and her eyes dilated. In the hall was a valise packed, secret like the blush of desire in her heart and the sensuous grip of the officer's hand when they danced. On her face, she feared, would show the plan she had made in the fever of a kiss with that officer. Here with her daughter looking up guileless as her gentle husband and throwing all her promises, all her vows back in her face, she trembled lest they all discover her. "It's only for a few hours, darling. Go to sleep and I'll be there when you wake up."_

* * *

They crept through the halls together without a plan, sword held aloft like a lantern in Jack's steady grip. It was dawn, or a few moments after. It was late to hope for an escape, but they foolishly did anyway. Neither had before thought what a prison a ship could be. They couldn't get off. They were trapped onboard, trapped fighting doom. 

"Shall we take the ship back, Jack?" Elizabeth asked. "The crew is aboard the other. If we could get to them—"

"No need risking our lives for the ship," Jack replied. "If we get away, the crew won't be harmed. It's us they're after."

Elizabeth bit her tongue against her trembling body. "I thought I would never see you again."

"I've thought that many times," Jack said, his fingers laced through hers, a comfort and a challenge. "But it seems you're as sure as the horizon, always there to draw me forward." He smiled his pirate smile, roguish and confident. "My heart's desire."

* * *

_Her father sat in the square of sunlight leaking from the window, slumped, arms wrapped around his chest as though cold. _

"_Is she really gone?" Elizabeth asked with the naïveté of a child, repeating the question of the servants. A creased letter sat before her father on the table. Elizabeth knew she was really gone. _

_She went over and put her arms around her father, taking care not to muss her dress. "I'll never give you up, Papa," she said. For the first time she saw how old, how sad his face could look. It shocked her that he wasn't invincible, that he was betrayable. And she thought, I hate my mother. She has left me and left him. She has betrayed us. She has given us up. I will never, never do such a thing. Not to a husband, not to a child. And though she was only eight, Elizabeth smiled at her father and kissed his cheek. "Come on, Papa," she said. "Let's go away together, you and I. Let's make a new life, and everything will be alright then, won't it, Papa?"_

* * *

Jack and Elizabeth paused before the door to the deck. The faint glow of dawn slid in through the cracks under the door, terrifying and unwelcome. 

"Any last words?" Jack teased, his black eyes warm as a summer night.

Elizabeth smiled back and leaned against him. Many words to say to him, but none of them seemed important now: she was carrying his child, she had stopped taking the herbs that he had given her to prevent it... she had betrayed her husband and he had let her, he had nearly killed her and set her free all in the same moment... she would have found a way to cheat death and come back to him if Barbossa had succeeded in killing her... she would never give Jack up. But words seemed cheap now, empty and wasteful. Instead she kissed him, kissed him for the thousandth time with the ease of an unhindered lover. Everything was as it should be.

They opened the door. Both gasped as their eyes adjusted to the dazzling sweep of sunbeams across a wide gold ocean and the weltering arcana of hope mocking them there. Across the deck were splayed Barbossa and his men, ready and waiting, guns at aim, faces jaded as the shores of the locker.

"Its dawn," Barbossa commented, a void of gray in the beautiful calm morning.

"Aye," Jack said with a smile. "So it is." Imperceptibly, he slid Elizabeth behind him, shielding her with his body. _Then I take the bullet and you get back on the __White Araby__ and sail off to the horizon. Savvy?_

"We're here to negotiate," Elizabeth put in.

"It's no use," Barbossa said. "It matters little which heart we break."

"You risk the anger of the very sea if you kill her," Jack said. "Have you forgotten her husband?"

Barbossa smirked wearily. "Ye're good to remind me. I wouldn't want to anger the sea." He pulled out the wrinkled map and tossed it before their feet. "That's that then. This is the way it has to be."

He aimed his pistol at Jack's heart, his eyes still keen. Jack remained still, his strong hand keeping Elizabeth behind him. Barbossa cocked the gun. And then without any sort of fuss, he pulled the trigger.

The bullet tore through Jack's chest, right into his heart. He collapsed onto the deck of the Black Swann, blood soaking his shirt, soaking the deck. And before Elizabeth could even fall to her knees, he was dead.

* * *

_More to come soon._


	15. Her Heart's Desire

**Chapter 15 **

_This is the last chapter. Yes, the very last. This story has been short but it has been a great challenge to write, and I felt it was finished now. I am incredibly, incredibly honored by how encouraging you all have been. This has been a delight, as well as a privilege to hear your amazing feedback. I am so grateful to all my dear readers, reviewers, encouragers, and friends. "Legends of the Pirate King" is still in progress, and I will probably begin another at some point. This has been a blast. _

_Inspiration for this chapter provided by the ballad of Tam Lynn, a legend that I thought profoundly mirrored the story of the Flying Dutchman and the difficulties surrounding that couple we love, sparrabeth. If anyone has noticed, the plot structure loosely follows one of my favorite childhood stories—brownie points if you can guess what it is. (A hint is that the last few lines of the first chapter are very much like the beginning of that story). Before I get more sappy and sentimental, I will say one last "thank you!" and give you the final chapter:_

_Spoiler: Come on you guys. I am a diehard sparrabether. Do you ever actually think I would KILL JACK!?!? I mean, in a permanent way? I'm insulted._

* * *

Even as his heart stopped beating, Elizabeth's broke. She had felt the pain of loss before, the anger, the sorrow… she had walked the long slow road of recovery. But this was different. This was as though the bullet had entered her heart. He was her heart. _"You are worth fighting for, and worth dying for. You always have been for me…"_

She was on her knees, too late. She had him in her arms, had his blood streaming over her, warm and unstoppable. She pressed her hands to the wound and clutched at his still face, his eyes half-open and glassy.

The gun in Barbossa's hand was still smoking. The faces across the deck weren't blank any longer. And the sun was gaining strength in the sky. Everything would move forward. Elizabeth had to stop them.

She met Barbossa's eyes. Maybe he couldn't believe he had done it. Maybe he was experiencing the twisted delight of revenge. It didn't matter. She was still a pirate, and she was still a king. _"What shall we fight for?"_ So quickly he couldn't react, Elizabeth leaped forward over Jack's body and seized the map. One chance.

"I have fulfilled every instruction here," she shouted to no one in particular. "And now I name my heart's desire—"

"No!" Barbossa yelled, and the men all trained their guns on her, falling forward, fast and decisive.

"My heart's desire is for this man's life," she cried firmly, "the life of Jack Sparrow."

At once, everything around her broke loose.

* * *

With only one thought, Elizabeth threw her arms around Jack's body, covering him, shielding him against the sudden rush of wind. A shrill sound, a fiery hurricane's flood of fury engulfed them, beat down upon them, pulled them mightily through dark depths. The ship, the men, the morning vanished from sight. Elizabeth's hair tore around her, her mind silenced by the overpowering roar, her body bruised and nearly shattered by the force of the storm. With all her strength she held Jack in her arms. He was all that mattered. All she wanted. The storm would not have him. 

A voice was in the air, a voice that was both familiar and strange, both shrill and commanding. Was it the voice of William Turner, or the goddess Calypso, or her own voice beating furiously around her? The voice said, "You must fight me for him. You must fight for your heart's desire. You must prove your worth. You must fight me for him."

"I will fight," Elizabeth shouted hoarsely into the storm. "I will fight for him, I would die for him. You will not have him."

Again the voice, the voice that was fast becoming the only reality she knew, "If you would have him, you must not let him go. For the moment you do, I will take him and you will forfeit your soul for daring to do battle with me. No one gains their heart's desire so easy."

"You will not have him!" she was screaming. And the storm was screaming back, challenges, ancient horrifying lies of the futility, the worthlessness of love. In her arms Jack was changed, his skin coiled and sliding from her grip, but she held on, tighter than ever. Again he was changed, his skin ice in her grip, freezing her, destroying her insides and torturing her mind, but she did not loosen her hold. And a third time, he was changed, his skin that of burning iron waiting to be hammered into place, and she was seared and scorched by his glowing heat until she could smell the burn of her own flesh. She did not let go. "I love you, I love you, I love you," she whispered over and over to the ever-changing being in her arms. He went on changing— his skin like stinging nettles in one moment, and the blade of a sword the next, still yet a living flame, and then all the pressure of the sea. She had no awareness except him, no thought for herself, no understanding except the pain and the knowledge she must not let go, not ever. The storm would not have him.

And then the storm changed its mind, changed its plan. A dark old way it had, used before on many a hero. Elizabeth's eyes were opened by a sudden noise—the voice of her son, calling to her in despairing tones. "Mother, mum, I'm frightened, where are you mother? They aren't kind to me, they hurt me… oh mother." Through the thickness of the storm she could see him, kneeling and alone in a pool of tears. Her heart wrenched and nearly died, but she did not let go, did not move. And next there was Will, only a child again as well, the boy she had known from a lifetime ago. He said nothing, only looked at her with a gaze as penetrating, as accusing, as adoring as ever she had imagined. The beat of his heart formed each blast of wind, each crack of thunder, each of her fading screams. She saw her life stretching before her—first as a betrayed child, then a willful girl, a romantic young woman, a stubborn fiancé, a determined rebel, a lustful pirate… she saw herself hurting those she loved most, saw herself always at the mercy of fate and destiny. She shut her eyes and clung to Jack, her heart breaking again and again. In her arms Jack was pale as death, yes he was dead… it didn't change anything. The storm would not have him.

"_If I gave you away, what would you do?"_

"_I'd find my way back to you." _

She was in one of his nightmares, she began to think. Trapped inside all of his worst fears, and her own. In pain and unable to cry out, thinking she could not win, she was not strong enough to save him. _"Yo ho, Yo ho, a pirate's death for me…"_ She was fighting against everything—every promise she had ever made, every soul she had ever hurt, her past, her present, the very fastness of the earth seemed to rise against her. The storm had once last weapon. Distinctly through the noise she heard Jack's voice, younger and rougher and more persuasive than ever.

"It would never have worked between us, darlin', you see? The price of love is too high for a pirate, after all. It isn't a matter of right or wrong anymore, love, it's a matter of price—you can't afford it."

Alone before the storm, utterly beyond help or hope, she pressed her face into the cold reality of Jack's body. She had already given up everything for him, and would give it up again. She had made her decision the night he stood on her window ledge offering his hand to her… her rescuer… Captain Jack Sparrow. She had betrayed him once and then betrayed everyone else in the world for him. She had made herself a pirate and kissed him once, and then he had made her a pirate a thousand times over again as he changed her understanding of good and bad, right and wrong, life and death. Her decision was already made. "I'm sorry Jack," she whispered in a voice that was barely human. "I don't want to live without you. I went on once before, but I can't again. I won't. I don't care what it costs me. I'll never give you up."

* * *

All at once everything stopped. Silence, calm. A soft sunrise on the horizon. An island around them. Elizabeth blinked and tried to understand, tried to take it in—she was drenched and hurt and she could scarce believe… She wasn't sure whether she had fallen asleep or woken at last from a nightmare; whether she had died, or whether she had been brought back to life. 

"Lizzie," a voice said. "You did it."

It was Jack. Alive, himself, tangled braids brushing against her, laughing kohl-black eyes meeting hers. With the utmost care he unhooked her arms from around him, kissing the palm of each hand, the soft place on each elbow, the curve of her forearm. Gently he brushed the wet hair from her face, meeting her forehead to forehead, nose to nose, and then at last, mouth to mouth in a deep, honest kiss.

"You've won your heart's desire," Jack whispered, looking around at the island,_their_ island, feeling the warmth of the sun caressing them, the freedom of a new day before them.

"And have you won yours?" she asked, very softly, the hidden corner of a smile playing at her mouth. He laughed, losing his care as he threw his arms around her, and they fell entangled into the sand together.

"Do you even have to ask, love?"

* * *

**Epilogue**

_"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there." Rumi._

Sunlight washed over the island in deep waves, over a bright cottage and beyond that, a ship anchored in the bay. The Caribbean breeze stirred the heavy palms that leaned over shimmering blue shallows on the north side. Gulls cried noisily and landed on a rough-built single dock stretching out towards the anchored ship.

A man was coming down the dock, towards the cottage on the island. Sun-darkened, sable haired, his movements were quick and sure and his black eyes were lined with creases from smiling. His garments were simple, his feet bare. He paused to glance ahead, and then, setting down the heavy chest in his hands, he began to run towards the island, a wide, boyish grin on his face.

Elizabeth was already running towards him. They met in the sand, as Jack grasped her waist and swung her around in the midst of laughter and kisses. Golden in the light, Elizabeth rested her face in the curve of his neck, drinking in his scent, feeling the familiar lines of his body, the solid realness of him in her arms.

And then Jack held her back for a moment, nodding his head in the direction of the dock. Elizabeth turned around in a flurry of hope. Her son was climbing down the ladder of the obsidian-black East Indiaman anchored there. Taller, jauntier than she remembered, and looking for all the world like his father. He smiled and hesitated, but Jack gave him a beckoning look and he came to them, fast crushed between Elizabeth's hugs and tears.

Overhead, thin white clouds drifted by lazily, heralded by a thousand shades of blue. The sounds of merriment and laughter traveled towards the house, where a little black-eyed girl tottered in the doorway. Jack swung his daughter up in the air, nuzzling her face before he gently guided young William inside.

On the threshold, Jack took Elizabeth into his arms and kissed her with deep passion, reveling in the salty taste of freedom. "You're home," she managed to whisper, caught between pleasure and pure happiness. Her son stood beside her, returned to her at long last. Her daughter sat at her feet, the girl's head covered in soft brown curls. And Jack bent close to kiss her again, his face shaded by the Westering sun, his mouth warm and his smile exultant.

"I'm home," he returned, both profoundly content and darkly mischievous as he kissed her again. The trade winds were picking up outside, carrying the call of exotic lands and unfound treasures, brisk and sharp with adventure. Jack and Elizabeth stood in the doorway allowing the wind to wash over them, breathing of it deeply, letting it rush away with the darkness of the past and carry new possibilities for the days ahead, and then Jack held out his hand to Elizabeth. "My lady," was his bright invitation. Elizabeth looked out the door over the bay, where the sun was setting into an unbounded horizon. And then she turned back, a smile on her face, and took his hand.

**THE END.**

* * *

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